Snakebite

I have just read a story concerning a young 13yrs old girl.

About a month ago she was bit in her lower leg,The pictures of her leg (WHICH YOU CAN SEE ON THE LINK I WONT PUT THEM UP ON ATS) are pretty gruesome almost mummified.

Now i live in the UK so no deadly snakes except the adder which is rare,I was wondering if any ATS members who live in countrys where you have poisonous snakes have you ever seen anything like her leg after a bite.



www.dailymail.co.uk...

Never, I have had dogs to die of a snake bite but if you aren't treated right away the venom can kill you. I do not think this is possible if she is still alive, I could be wrong but the first I have ever heard or seen this.

a reply to: KROandSOTV

The only actual snake bite I've ever personally seen is a Northern Copperhead bite, and it looks nothing like that (plus it was on a pup, not a human). My husband has seen his share of human bites and he doesn't recall anything ever having looked THAT bad. That poor kid.

Did you happen to read any of the comments? I can't speak as to the person's credibility but a man who says he is a doctor who has done amputations said this degree of mummification is more likely to have come from the compression bandage that was applied to her leg. Is that true? I have no clue...but, it might be a bit more realistic.

I believe that you will find the answer here.
www.abovetopsecret.com...

a reply to: RunForTheHills

Im just thinking if she was with a family member and they tied a belt around the top would that of caused her leg to go black.

Sometimes the worst thing about a snakebite is the bacteria it introduces into a body. Im not a Dr... but that looks like clostridium perfungens (sorry spelling.. been a while) which causes gas gangrene. .. It wouldn't surprise me if this wasn't the case. I didn't read all of the article if it was mentioned already.

I dunno if im buying this completely..........surely if the leg was getting even close to that bad where bone was exposed like that, doctors would have amputated it a LONG time before that.......

Look her heel doesnt even have tendon........I dunno.....im skeptical

That looks like a CGI to me.

I' m no doctor, but I' pretty sure she would have died from the infection LONG before it got that bad.

a reply to: KROandSOTV

Here we go.

Pubmed is better than google at times.

These are just snakes from one region... when I searched pubmed I found a lot of studies.

Snakes stay on the ground where feces are... they eat pretty nasty animals like rats and other vermin.

I grew up in the south and we had a lot of poisonous snakes but I only remember animals and friends getting in trouble with the infections after bites.

That photo in the op is somewhat sensationalized perhaps btw... Im not sure any surgeon would believe in limb salvage to that degree to not amputate much sooner.

Who knows.

good thread, thanks.

I didn't see mention of the type of snake.

I have been bitten by a Copperhead. Painful but rarely deadly.

Read a comment that makes sense to me under the daily mail article provided above.

meerkat21, Colombo, Sri Lanka, about an hour ago
If you ask any Vascular Surgeon in England and they will admit to seeing cases similar to this in UK -- but for different reasons. I had to do a forearm amputation for mummification like this. This condition -- mummification -- is more likely due to the compression bandage consisting of ground leave( seen in photo) , or a tourniquet they used, than due to the snake bite. If it was a Viper or a Cobra this girl would have been dead in a few hours. The fact that she survived for a month with the dead leg attached means she will survive. This is not Rhabdomyolisis. When did a GP from Liverpool become a snake expert?


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Its a fer de lance snake if you google it and look at the bites some not all do look similar

www.google.co.uk... WugNAM&ved=0CAYQ_AUoAQ

lol

I have wasted a LOT of time tonight reading about snake bites!

This is an article that has more laymen terminology and is more thorough. Is more on general animal bites. Who knew they were this nasty.



Cheers

originally posted by: ArmyOfNobunaga
lol

I have wasted a LOT of time tonight reading about snake bites!

This is an article that has more laymen terminology and is more thorough. Is more on general animal bites. Who knew they were this nasty.



Cheers

Just going through that now.

Thanks for the link

Here in Texas where I live we have rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths, and coral snakes. Pretty much every venomous snake indigenous to North America, and the most common in my particular area are cottonmouths and copperheads. I see at least one cottonmouth and five copperheads every summer. One summer there were almost fifteen copperheads around a decorative pond in the back yard, all in a single night!!! I suppose they were looking for water, but not really sure. It seems that the particular area my house is in, out in the country, is bordered on all sides by woods, and that they cross in this open area a lot. They're always lying under stuff, and I am always extremely careful whenever stepping where there are a lot of brown leaves, or where I have to reach down and pick something up or turn it over.

I've actually seen what a copperhead bite does firsthand, and it is not terribly bad if one seeks treatment immediately. It is not likely to kill an adult, and it is pretty hard to get bitten by one of these snakes unless you simply don't see it. Now what happened with the girl in the article is unusual, in that she waited an extremely long time before she sought medical treatment. So the reason we don't see stuff like this very often is because most people will seek medical attention long before the girl in the article. So the venom had nothing to counteract it, and it basically just ate away her leg, unchecked, for all that time. I have heard stories of people who have gotten bitten by rattlesnakes and not sought medical treatment, and they somehow lived, but I don't know if those stories are true. Sometimes a snake will bite without envenomating the person, but supposedly there are people who have been around snakes a lot and who have repeatedly gotten bitten without severe effects. They did lose some of the functionality of their limbs, but there was not really any cosmetic damage. So I suppose venom is worse for some people, but I am not really sure.

Whenever I see a venomous snake, which again is relatively often, I kill them. No ifs, ands, or buts. I will leave the non-venomous snakes alone, so they can go eat mice or whatever, but when you have a snake that will instinctively strike you if you happen to not notice it, and that snake is around where you and your family live, then obviously it cannot stay. It would be worse to attempt to relocate it to a non-populated area, because most people probably get bit from trying to handle snakes. I don't like killing things, but it is too dangerous to leave the snakes in my opinion. I've heard of stupid people getting bitten because they try to mess with a venomous snake. Many of these people are not professional herpetologists or anything, but just ordinary people who have no experience with snakes, much less those of the venomous variety. And they try to pick them up sometimes, which is Darwin Award territory in my opinion. I used to watch that show where people with snakebites show up at the emergency room, and that is what happened on some episodes.

I fear the cottonmouths/water moccasins more than the copperheads that I usually see. I killed a cottonmouth in my front yard just the other day. He had already bitten a frog on its back, as I could see the puncture marks and could see the area around the bite where there were blood vessels and whatnot showing. It was quite strange-looking. The copperheads aren't aggressive, and usually will only strike if you step on them or agitate them severely. They usually just won't move at all, or they will try to slither away. I have seen cottonmouths that are much less afraid of people, and are sometimes downright aggressive. So where snakebites are concerned, I say that people who live in areas where there are snakes should take precautions to keep from getting bitten. Don't stick your hands anywhere where a snake could be hiding, which they will be doing just about any time between morning and night, and don't try to mess with a snake at all. If you're going to kill it, use something long like a shovel, and don't miss. And then make sure you bury it, or throw it somewhere where no people or animals go. I would bury it, simply because the fangs will still be there, and if you or an animal stepped on them there could still be a slight envenomation.

I think some people, for whatever reason, are affected worse or less by snake venom.
I have been struck on the hand by a small copperhead. It stung like all hell and my hand swelled up, but it was better after a few days. Just kept it packed on ice and drank lots of fluids.
I know a guy that got struck in the face by a rattler. He didn't go to the doctor and was at work the next day. He said it felt like having a lit cigar held to his face.
On the bad side, I have a friend that lost her leg from the knee down from a copperhead bite.
I also came across a guy in the Smoky Mountains in North Carolina who had been laying beside a stream for three days.
He had been struck by a large rattler and it broke his leg!
Moccasins are just nasty. You have little choice but to go to a hospital and have tissue surrounding a bite surgically removed to avoid gangrene .
I'm not sure what to make of the link in the OP. If that's real, that leg should have already been amputated.

I live around copper heads, and have been bitten on the foot once. I cleaned the bite and kept it on ice, it was painful and I couldn't put my shoe on for a few days. Not a big concern for me I guess, I'm more concerned about the bite of a Brown Recluse. Gruesome tissue damage there.

originally posted by: QuietSpeech
I live around copper heads, and have been bitten on the foot once. I cleaned the bite and kept it on ice, it was painful and I couldn't put my shoe on for a few days. Not a big concern for me I guess, I'm more concerned about the bite of a Brown Recluse. Gruesome tissue damage there.

I've got a nasty scar from a recluse bite. It took nearly year to heal.
Never been bit by a black widow, but from what I understand they are bad bitches.
I'm more afraid of a spider bite than a snake.

a reply to: QuietSpeech

I live around copper heads, and have been bitten on the foot once. I cleaned the bite and kept it on ice, it was painful and I couldn't put my shoe on for a few days

I got bit on the foot also. An eye opener when it hurts to pull a sock onto your foot. Two weeks to get back near normal.

Snakes can control how much venom they will inject. Larger snakes, while they can inject a lot more venom, also have more control. When they strike a human being, they aren't trying to kill you usually; they're usually just trying to defend themselves. In that case, the amount of venom you get is up to the snake. If you are perceived as a big threat, you'll get more venom. If they snake is more agitated/ticked off, you'll get more venom.

Every so often, you can get a dry bite or no venom. And no adult snake wants to drain its venom, so you shouldn't ever get the whole amount, and you should never count on the snake being "out" of venom, either.

Small/baby snakes are the worst because they have no control over how much venom they inject and they are really fast and squirmy making them hardest to handle. If you get bit by a little guy, you're getting the whole shot.

It's possible this girl didn't get a lot, but just enough to do this to her.