All creatures great and small

It was a beautiful morning, sunny, warm but not hot, no wind and all was right with the world.

I was collecting kindling, only 15m away from camp, on the grassy track which services this delightful campsite when I felt a sharp, quick pain at the instep of my left foot. Bugger! A bull ant I expect, they have bitten me before and they *do* hurt but are not serious - an hour or so and the pain and irritation have departed. I scratched the pain site then ignored it. Made a mental note that I should be wearing my expensive and comfortable hiking boots rather than these very poor quality Dunlop sports shoes - trouble is the Dunlops have velcro ties and are much easier and quicker to slip into than the boots.

Back in camp five minutes later and the bull ant bite is demanding my attention, I remove my left shoe and sock to examine the bite site and make another mental note to add StingGoes to the first aid kit.

The bite site displays two small wounds to my skin about 10mm apart, hhhhmmmmm... looks rather like a snake objected to my presence in his vicinity.

I'm deep in the bush, been here for six days and neither heard nor seen a soul. Mobile phones don't work *anywhere* near here. It's about three hours drive to the nearest town with a hospital or doctor and the last thing one does with a snake bite victim is to subject them to exertion, say... a three hour hard drive in a four wheel drive vehicle.

I examine the wounds again hoping they have magically metamorphosed into something else - nope, a classic snake bite wound. Double bugger.

What to do? I could trigger the Spot emergency system but I'd look a right twit if it turned out to be a bull ant with a sense of humour who had bitten me twice! "Did you actually *see* a snake sir" - "No, not actually *see* one"; "Was there any noticeable venom around the bite site sir" - "Errrr... not that I noticed....".

I could abandon my camp and drive out but if the snake was a Tiger or Brown etc I'd be dead before I reached Bairnsdale.

Oh well... only thing left is to pressure bandage my left leg, move my chair into the shade - and wait....

Australia is home to 18 of the 21 most venomous snakes on the planet which always makes for an interesting guessing game when one spies a snake in the bush; however many of our snakes are non venomous but still tend to bite humans who annoy them so, by no means, is every bite dangerous but who bets on the single numbers at roulette?

Fortunately I've acquired a fair amount of information about snakes over the years and have the salient aspects printed and stored in the four wheel drive. I locate the section regarding symptoms and indications of snake bite - many victims have no knowledge of being bitten but simply became ill after being outside.

Basically, symptoms can be just about anything and death can occur anytime from five minutes or up to 18 hours if the victim is lucky and the first aid is good. And this from a formal medical document - in reality we just don't know that much about how the various snake venoms affect the human body.

I remove the crepe bandage from the first aid box, whip off my jeans and sit on a tarp on the ground. Bandaging one's own leg, tightly, from the foot upwards is not a trivial task for an, overweight, 57 year old male. Nevertheless I, eventually, manage it.

It's 11.50am - I was bitten about 10 minutes ago and I write this time down because one of the symptoms of snake bite is confusion.

Me, the clock, chair, bottle of water and Terry Pratchett's latest novel retire to the shade and wait.

My medical notes tell me the general symptoms of snake bite are; headache, nausea, diarrhoea, blurred vision, confusion and a host of technical terms of which I have no understanding. More interestingly the notes also suggest which symptoms are exhibited within the first; one, two and three hours following the bite. I observe my body with keen interest.

30 minutes: is that the start of a headache - nah, don't be a wimp.

60 minutes: a little numbness in my right arm but I think that's due to my seating position and holding the book - probably?

2 hours: Hooray! I feel OK, I'm going to live.

There is a Golden Rule here: once a pressure bandage has been applied to a snake bite it is *NEVER* removed until the victim is under full medical care - triple bugger!

At two and a half hours I remove the bandage, five minutes later I can feel a headache coming on...! Ten minutes later the headache has vanished. VK3UFO = one - snakes = nil :)

Who knows? Perhaps it was a whimsical bull ant or a non venomous snake or a "dry bite" from a venomous snake - if threatened the venomous snakes will sometimes bite in order to warm but they will not inject venom?

In any event it was a salutary reminder that, in the bush, nature rules, not man.

4.00pm Saturday - 8/10/2011




Page last updated June 2012