By Rick Ryckeley
Fayette County Fire & Emergency Services

It's springtime once again. The birds singing, frogs are croaking, bees are buzzing, and snakes well, snakes are just snakes.

I don't like snakes because they're sneaky ... always lying around under a piles of leaves ... just waiting for a big juicy foot or toe to come close enough so they can strike.

I come from a long line of snake haters. My Dad he doesn't like snakes. My granddad he doesn't like snakes either. His father before him and his father likewise are all snake haters. And for good reason ... snakes have no shoulders, and they're sneaky even fake ones.

At the tender age of ten, my twin brother Steve had this great idea. "Don't worry, Rick," he said. "It'll be fun." (Yes, I know it's scary, but I do have a twin.)

"Oh no," I thought. "This is what Big Brother James says right before we get into trouble. After which we all wind up out in the back yard next to the swamp picking out switches."

Steve went to the closet and dug out the five-foot-long rubber snake he won at the county fair two months earlier. Fang was not your ordinary rubber snake. He was solid rubber, three inches in diameter, and weighed in at over ten pounds. He had a long, red, forked tongue sticking out between two one inch white fangs hanging from the top of his large open mouth.

At the tip of his tail, we attached a real rattle from a rattle snake. (James found the dead snake out back in the swamp the week before.) Painted a glossy black with ruby red eyes, our Fang was very life-like. Yes, indeed. Snakes are sneaky, even fake ones.

Snakes can be found on grass or dirt, under rocks, in holes, under water, and even hanging around from low tree limbs. This spring you'll see them curled up on the grass or sunning themselves in the middle of dirt roads. (That's if you see them at all snakes are sneaky.)

My son asked me when he was eight, "Dad, if snakes sun themselves all day, how come they don't have suntans?" You know, for a kid he asks some pretty good questions. I went out and bought him a computer and told him to look up the answer himself. Like most kids, my son knows more about computers than his dad does.

Most people who are bitten by snakes do not die or even get sick. Last year in the U.S., over 50,000 people were bitten by snakes. Only 8,000 of them involved poisonous ones, but only twenty deaths were reported. (Humans, not snakes.)

Most venomous snakes in the Southeast belong to a common family called pit vipers. Copperheads, rattlesnakes, and water moccasins are considered to be pit vipers and are all found in Georgia.

My trusty Emergency Medical Technician book states, "...if you look carefully, you will note a small pit below each eye of the snake. Thus giving it its name: pit viper."

I don't think so don't even care. It's just not a good idea to get that close to a live snake. Just like I did not think what Steve had in mind to do with Fang was a good idea either...

Late one Saturday afternoon, Dad was all stretched out on the couch (back when they made couches long enough that dads could stretch out on them). He had just finished a long day of yard work and chasing snakes back into the swamp.

(I've seen the man chase a black racer all the way across the yard with a weed eater. He'd have caught up with it if weren't for the fact he ran out of extension cord.)

Dad was sound asleep. The perfect time, Steve thought, to throw Fang on him. As it turned out, this was not such a good idea. Dad was not amused no, not at all. I've never seen such a large man move so fast and use such colorful language.

Colorful skin or discoloration around the bite is an unmistakable sign of pit viperís injected venom. A sharp pain and swelling will accompany this along with tissue and blood vessel damage. In the old West, cowboys cut the site and sucked out the venom. (The old West lost a lot of cowboys that way.)

Sucking venom is not recommended, but immediate first aid is. First, call 911. Then, to prevent the spread of venom, a constricting band can be used located just above the bite site. Note the time the band is placed on and inform the medics when they arrive.

Bands in snake bite kits are usually one and a half inches wide and made of soft rubber. A handkerchief or scarf can be used in place of the band. Bands are not tourniquets and should not be tightened to the point of preventing blood flow.

Place a band two inches above the bite and a second band two inches below the bite, but never on top of a joint. Snug the bands to restrict the flow of blood but donít cut off circulation to the extremity. If only one band is available, place it one inch above the bite.

Unless a physician has instructed you to do so, it's not recommended to put ice on the bite. Using a constricting band will help keep the spread of venom and the destruction of tissue to a minimum.

The destruction of our beloved Fang was fast and furious. We saw nothing but elbows, knees and pieces of rubber snake flying all over the front room. Not one piece of Fang was left that was more than three inches long - the rattler was flushed down the toilet - and then Dad turned to us. We were not to be found anywhere in the house - all of us were already out in the back yard next to the swamp, picking out the weakest switches we could find.

This spring, remember to watch your step in your backyard. That nice soft spot your foot finds might have a pair of fangs. My Dad once said, "All snakes should be considered to be poisonous until proven otherwise by autopsies." I concur.

[Rick Ryckeley is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services. He can be reached at saferick@bellsouth.net.]

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