The whole Rattlesnake Bite story

Timber Rattlesnake - Bull Run Mountain Originally uploaded by bakpacker

Some of you may have read in the GHF newsletter that I was bitten by a rattle snake while doing research on butterflies. Here is the whole story.

In the summer of 1993 I was employed as a research assistant by the University of Kansas biology department. My job was to count the numbers of species of butterflies landing in variously sized experimental “islands” of unmowed grass. On a hot Sunday afternoon I was trudging through one of the larger islands that had, because of the lack of mowing, begun to turn into shrubs. There was a lot of brush to push through, and because it was my job to look for butterflies I hadn’t been watching my step.

I felt a sudden pressure against my leg accompanied by a sting, and then a moment later, the rattle. I think I must have kicked it and startled it enough to make it strike out with poor aim. Out of the corner of my right eye I caught a blur of gray, which was all I ever saw of that snake. I knew immediately what had happened and jumped out of the island to sit on the mowed grass and take a look. On the outside of my pants was a spray of venom. On my sock, more blood than I had expected, under my sock on my left shin, just above my hiking boot was an inch-long scratch that was stinging and bleeding like mad. Only one puncture wound – I was “lucky.” My first thoughts were focused on who might be around doing fieldwork on a Sunday afternoon. I knew I had to find help immediately, and I had remembered hearing a truck door slam.

My options were speeding around my mind. If I can’t find help in the experimental tracts, Dr. Henry Fitch might be home. Henry is the legendary herpetologist who knows the local snake population distribution like the back of his hand. He lived on the reserve and I often saw him out turning over sheets of corrugated metal looking for snakes. I thought if Henry isn’t home, I might have to drive myself to the hospital. I scanned the landscape for humans. I tried to stay calm and walk with weight on my right leg. As I approached my vehicle I saw the red truck owned by a botanist, and then I saw him, face down to the ground counting plants in a quadrat.

“Gordon!” I said, and he didn’t look up right away. “Gordon! I’ve been bitten by a rattlesnake!”

Suddenly paying attention he asked, “Are you sure?”

“Well, yes, it rattled at me and it really hurts. Can you take me to the hospital?”

The conversation went something like that. I think Gordon knew just enough about me that he realized I knew what had really happened. He didn’t ask to see the bite or spend much time talking about it before we were in my state-issued van, speeding to the hospital. I sat in the back with my leg propped up on the seat while Gordon sped into town. He kept asking me to tell him how I felt, and I kept apologizing for crying, asking him to change the subject. At one point I became nauseated, but I think it was caused by being so nervous. He kept the conversation going, vacillating between his curiosity and me trying not to get upset. I reminded him that the van had a horn, and he might want to use it. He did.

When we arrived at the hospital, he stuck around until my boyfriend (now husband) could be reached. He had called Henry, and Henry said he thought it had to have been a Timber Rattler. He also told me that Henry and I were the only ones to ever get bitten by a rattler out there. My boyfriend arrived and I told him that I would have to cancel dinner with his grandma.

The nurses didn’t know what to do right away, but they told me that I was in luck, a physician who was a rattlesnake bite specialist lived in town, and he was on his way over. He had instructed them to hook me up to an IV, and he was headed over. The IV was pumping more fluid into me than normal to get my kidneys to work on cleaning up after the sloppy snake. My leg was kept below the level of my heart at all times, and my heart and lungs were carefully monitored. The nurses would measure the circumference of my ankle and ask me to tell them how badly it hurt. The pain was pretty intense, and it was about four hours before the doctor allowed me any pain medication, which was Demerol. The Demerol made me vomit each time it was administered, which wasn’t ideal, considering they wanted all of my symptoms to be those of the rattlesnake bite, not the treatment. And, it didn’t do much for the pain.

The doctor informed me early on of the possible side effects of taking antivenin (sometimes spelled “antivenom”). As I recall, they included anything from no side effect to flu-like symptoms to anaphylactic shock or death. Flu-like symptoms could be onset weeks after taking the drug. He said that up to 30% of all people who take antivenin has some kind of reaction to it because it is derived from horse serum. Either way, I would never be able to take it again if another rattlesnake bit me in the future because my body would develop a reaction to it. The doctor made it clear that he wanted the decision to take the antivenin to be a well-informed one, and that he did not have a recommendation one way or the other at that point. My mother arrived in a panic. My grandmother prayed for me.

We waited to see how well my body would resist the venom on its own. I’d told the doctor that I preferred to wait, and that I could bear the pain. My tiny ankle swelled to about nine or ten inches in circumference. No one ever suggested surgery. Perhaps this was because the venom hadn’t entered any of my muscle tissue. The swelling all stayed below my knee, mostly concentrated in my ankle and foot. But then, I started to feel a line of pain traveling up my inner thigh, right along my femoral vein, and my bladder started to hurt. At this point the doctor recommended the antivenin. He felt that the vomiting and the pain traveling up my leg were signs that it might be moving toward my heart, and he clearly wanted to avoid that.

The antivenin comes in powder form, and once I gave him permission to give it to me, he started trying to mix it into a solution for my IV. He came in several times to tell me that it wasn’t dissolving in the saline solution. I guess this was the biggest glitch in my treatment. I think he ended up mixing the powder with alcohol, but I’m not certain (in fact, this doesn’t make much sense to me, since alcohol would break down any of the proteins in the antivenin). Once the solution was in my IV, the pain in my bladder and femoral vein went away, and the pain in my lower leg lessened greatly. I stopped taking Demerol because I preferred not to vomit.

For the next two days I stayed in the hospital – the first night in ICU. I had to continually remind the nurses not to prop my foot up. After I got out of the hospital I was unable to walk for a couple more days while the swelling turned my calf and foot purple. Because I was working for the University at the time of the bite, workers comp paid for my hospital stay, all but a toothbrush that cost me five bucks. My boyfriend’s grandma took care of me at her house until I could get around. I think it took about three weeks for me to ditch the crutches. I heard a lot of stories in those three weeks about other rattlesnake bites.

I bought a pair of rattlesnake gators and went back out in the field as soon as I could walk without crutches. Every time I heard the rattle of a grasshopper skittering away I would freeze up and my heart would race. This still happens sometimes when I unexpectedly hear similar sounds like rain sticks. My graduate advisor had a Massasauga in her office for a while, and every time it rattled, my brain ceased working on our conversation. I still have a very slight bit of scar tissue on my shinbone that increased during my first pregnancy. I never experienced any noticeable side effects from the antivenin.