🚀 go-pugleaf

Seth Fehrs wrote:
> Copperhead bites are no trivial matter, but those other three
> snakes are much more of a problem.

Copperhead bites are the most common here, though.

Fortunately they too tend to the smallish side. I head for the hills
every chance I get, and the biggest one I ever saw was at Doughton (off
the BRP) near the confluence of Cove and Caudill Creeks. It was lying in
the middle of the old roadbed I was hiking up, basking in the sun, and
was a good three feet long. I probably could have gotten away with just
stepping over it, but being basically cowardly I prodded it out of the
way instead. It wouldn't go, it just lay there, hunching its head back
and glaring at me with a disgusted look as though I were the lowest form
of life it had seen in days. I finally lifted it aside with my staff,
and with one last withering look it slid dignifiedly off into some
rocks.

The biggest rattlesnake I have seen was on Bogue Bank (years back,
before Atlantic Beach, Pine Knoll Shores and Emerald Isle swallowed the
bank whole). Poking around in the marine forest on the old Roosevelt
landholding on the sound side, near where Dunescape now stands, looking
for an interesting place to snorkel, I came upon one stretched across
the sand roadway. It was as big as my leg. I kid you not. I didn't try
to move that one.

Venomous snakes really aren't all that dangerous, though. In the first
place, there aren't that many of them. Should you encounter one you
usually see and can just walk around it before contact. If disturbed,
they usually do not bite; they are defensive creatures and would much
rather leave you alone, scare you away or run off (after all, they can't
eat you and have no reason to attack). If you are bitten, in only about
half the cases is any venom at all injected; the snake needs to save
that for his next mouse and isn't going to waste it on you unless he has
to. If you are envenomated, in only rare cases do you receive enough of
it to put you in mortal danger; a few people are allergic to it and
likely to die just as some may from a bee sting, but it would take a
large snake that had a full load of venom (meaning he hadn't struck prey
in some time) that for some unlikely reason spent it all on you to give
you enough to threaten your life.

I have been bitten by one, though, and can say the pain is explosive and
overwhelming. You have perhaps one minute to do something; once the
venom sets in you will be too busy grasping the bitten spot and pouring
tears from your eyes to handle a tourniquet, knife and suction cup
responsibly (most of the folks who pass out advice recommend not using
those anyway). If you can't get out to a hospital at once (and with help
every step of the way) the best you can do is to find a comfortable
place to lie down, a spot where you can just reach out to scoop up
drinking water (the more of that you take in the better), and wait it
out. It will pass, more or less, in half a day or so, and you won't die.

-- 
   Stephen Worley Anderson in Rocky Mount, North Carolina

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