By Richard Robinson, Guest Columnist
I read the guest column by Robbie Pounds (in the Aug. 17 edition of the Cherokee Scout) about her snakebite experience, and realized she vividly described the same pain I went through many years ago.
I was working as a landscape crew supervisor in Atlanta, spreading pine straw under shrubbery that surrounded our customer’s old antebellum estate. My crew had finished planting some new shrubbery, and I was dressing up the existing shrubs with new straw, when something stung my hand with a jolt. I didn’t see any wasps or yellow jackets, so I thought one of those black scorpions got me.
It was lunchtime, so we hopped in the truck to go get a sandwich. In just a couple of minutes, my hand turned bright red and started getting hot, throbbing with pain. By the time we got to McDonald’s, the pain and red streaks were going up my arm, and all I asked for was some of their crushed ice to wrap in a towel to soothe my hand and arm.
The guys asked if I wanted them to drive me to the hospital. I’ve been stung or bitten by just about every bee or bad bug in the eastern United States. I’ve been attacked by a big nest of yellow jackets stung me more than 20 times as I ran down a 100-yard driveway, so thought I could tough it out. But whatever got me this time was just like Ms. Pounds stated – 100 times worse than a normal sting.
So after the guys wolfed down their sandwich, my hand was swollen twice its size and the pain was unbearable, so I begged them to take me to the hospital. I was getting nauseated from the pain, and threw up outside the emergency room door before we went in.
In the exam room, they gave me a couple of shots that helped with the pain and throbbing. The doctor looked for bite or puncture wounds but did not see any. The antihistamine shot they gave me made me drowsy, so the guys drove me home.
My hand was still hurting and red hot, so when I got home I found that running cold water over it made the pain tolerable. I fell asleep sitting on the toilet with my hand in the sink under running cold water.
When my wife came home from work, she woke me, and a new surge of pain started again, so she drove me back to the hospital. This time I was delirious with pain, so I told the doctor to just cut off my arm. I’m glad they talked me out of that. They gave me two more shots, finally the swelling was going down and I fell asleep again.
When I woke up, the nurse said she found two puncture wounds at the base of my middle finger that the swelling must have hidden. The diagnosis was a snake bite, probably a copperhead.
I now have a pair of snake boots, as 90 percent of snake bites are below the knee. I am also very careful when spreading mulch under shrubs and use a rake or a long-handled cultivator.
Just remember that there are only a few bad snakes and most – like the rat, black, racer and king snakes – are good snakes.
The writer is a resident of Murphy.