Home And Garden Guide Online

The key to survival is to remain calm and take a few simple steps to prevent the rapid spread of toxins in the Lymphatic system.

First and foremost, try to avoid them completely and get to know the snakes common for your area. The best thing you can do is to familiarize yourself with photos of the snakes, (venomous and non-venomous,) that are known to frequent in your area.

For us, we have 5 or 6 to be most concerned about but for some reason the copperhead seems to be the most prevalent for some reason. Take the time to carefully inspect your property. Look for places that allow them to be well hidden. Keeping your grass cut short, and reducing the amount of artificial cover like rubbish, or old junk, or lots of boards or shingle roofing will keep the number of places snakes like to hide at a minimum.

If you do encounter a venomous snake and in the unfortunate case that you are bitten, here are a few tips on surviving a venomous snake bite.

1. Stay calm. This will save your life. If you’re flipping out, your heart beats faster and you increase the flow of blood to the affected area, which will increase the amount of toxin able to find its way into your tissues.

2. Don’t wait for symptoms to kick in before going to the emergency room. An untreated venomous snakebite that injected venom is a serious medical condition that can even kill a person depending on the condition.

3. You should always be aware of what the common venomous snakes in your region look like. You really don’t need to take the time to try and kill or capture it as you really don’t need to take the snake with you. Here’s why, anti-venom these days is polyvalent – that is, they are effective against multiple venoms.

4. Although a venomous snakebite is a serious and sometimes life-threatening situation, they usually occur well within reach of a hospital. In the event you are several hours away from the nearest hospital, stay standing, stay hydrated, stay calm, and use a cell phone to call emergency responders. REMEMBER: Modern cell phones have triangulation abilities to help locate the caller.

5. Some venomous snakebite wounds are shallow ones which you should let the initial wound naturally bleed out. More blood will come out at first because there are typically anticoagulants in the venom. After bleeding out, wash the wound with soap and water. This will help clean the area and helps avoid infection. NOTE: Soap and water does not get rid of the poison in the body. You still need to go to a hospital. In the event that the a snakebite is deep enough to hit a vien or excessive bleeding occurs, immediately apply pressure to the wound and call emergency responders.

6. You’ve probably seen many movies showing someone with a snake bite making a “X” incision over the fang injuries or sucking out the toxin! DON’T ATTEMPT THIS!! You will most likely cause excessive bleeding and/or additional necrosis (tissue death) and/or further infection from the germs in your mouth or surrounding environment. Keeping A SNAKE BITE KIT in or around your home or garden might not be a bad idea if you are in a very rural area and feel like you are WELL versed and very familiar with such a practice but even so, DO NOT AVOID GOING TO THE HOSPITAL!

7. Something else that is poorly portrayed especially in the movies is the use a tourniquet. While certain medical conditions still are helped with proper application of a tourniquet, these are few in number and it is not recommended for snake bites. A tourniquet CAN cause necrosis and possibly eventuate the need for amputation of the affected area! Rather than using a tourniquet, a constriction band, such as an ACE bandage, may be used.

In conclusion, although getting bit by a venomous snake is a very frightening thing, the most important thing to remember is DON’T PANIC. Reports show that in the United States and Australia especially, there are few snakes that are deadly. Keep your calm about you and seek medical assistance and you will most likely survive even though you will probably be in a lot of pain.

As with all accidents, the best treatment is prevention!

This is one of three copperheads that we encountered all in the same day during a birthday party for my daughter. All three were in or around the backyard and garden. This one, the biggest was almost 30 inches in length!

Here’s some further tips:

* Know where you are going and what you can expect to encounter. Snakes, like almost all wild animals, seek to avoid you.
* In the woods, make enough noise to warn the snake you are coming.
* Watch where you are walking or reaching.
* Use your sense of smell, snakes most usually put off a unique odor, so learn to avoid it.
* When you encounter a venomous snake, don’t approach it and back away very slowly. Reports show that 80% to 95% of all venomous snakebites occur because of intentional approach.

P.S. Anyone interested in a copperhead – head or hatband? Just let me know…I may be able to arrange just that!