Bitten, Scratched, and Banged Up: The Copperhead Incident

     Having been bitten, scratched, bludgeoned, and mauled by a wide variety of wildlife, if there’s any one thing I can assure those of you who have the good fortune –and by this I mean “good sense”- to have avoided such one sided confrontations with nature, it is this: big or small, it provides for a most unpleasant experience. I cannot recall how many times I’ve come in second place in one of these animal altercations but I’m willing to bet that if I had a dollar for each one, I’d be listed in Forbes 400 somewhere between Warren Buffet and Donald Trump. While some people may chalk this up to a lack of caution, I do not. When you spend as much time with and around animals that can kill and, in some instances, actually eat you, as I have, you develop a great amount of caution and a good measure of respect for each and every one of them. I attribute my collection of injuries to a stipulation of Murphy’s Law which states that if you are in an environment long enough where a mistake or accident may occur, sooner or later it will occur. In fairness, Murphy’s Law has caught up with me a number of times and if I knew Mr. Murphy any better, we would probably have a weekly card game.  Despite my frequent dealings with Murph, several of my animal encounters can, in all fairness, be blamed on plain, grade –A stupidity. The following episode is one such instance.

 

     I had the terrarium prepared. The traditional ten gallon fish tank had been converted nicely for all manner of small reptiles, complete with soil, foliage, and leafy debris forming the natural interior. Like a motel, it had been the temporary home for countless guests before. Tucked safely away within a cotton sack was the next tenet, a medium sized Eastern ribbon snake I had caught less than twenty minutes before. What I didn’t have was a lid for the terrarium, which was essential to keeping a snake. Snakes are a heck of lot smarter than people give them credit for and will, if there is even the slightest opportunity provided them, escape a new enclosure. With me on that summer day of 2003 was my cousin, Chris. The two of us had been busy elsewhere until we crossed paths with the ribbon snake and decided to catch it. “Give me a second” I shouted to him from across the yard, “I know where I can get a lid!” Where there is now a blank sheet of concrete to the side of my house, just between the back corner and the side gully which runs into the creek, there was at one time a large wooden shed. Nicknamed the “chicken shed” due to its function as a chicken coop for several seasons’ worth of livestock shows, its second purpose was to hide the large amount of scrap wood that we would eventually burn –when we got around to it, of course. The scrap wood consisted of many plywood sheets and timber boards, stacked just behind the shed, out of sight. That’s where I would get my lid by custom cutting the plywood sheet to my exact specifications. Turning the corner of the shed, I examined my selections the best I could through the ankle deep leaves that had fallen and dried out that summer. Showing an extreme lack of better judgment, I had ventured over to the leaf buried wood pile barefoot, not having bothered to put on a pair of shoes. I was in a hurry and couldn’t be bothered the time it would cost me to find my set of New Balance track shoes. It would have taken two minutes from my busy schedule. It ended up taking two months instead.

 

     Lifting each board for inspection and eventual rejection, I was careful to look the ground over for snakes. Apparently, I wasn’t careful enough. In another classic blunder, I merely scanned the ground over once for each piece of wood I lifted, knowing full well in the back of my mind after so many years that a well camouflaged snake could avoid visual detection from a jeweler, if hidden in the right substrate. And I was ankle deep in the right substrate. One particular board caught my interest and I gave it a careful examination. Holding it upright the length of my body, I decided that as sure as politicians lie, I could make a lid from this board. Deciding it would be easier to chop up on the ground, I let it fall. That was the last second the board was on my mind. As it hit the ground, I was mildly alarmed to feel a sensation similar to being pinched by a crab on the right edge of my right foot, halfway between the toe and the heel. Turning in surprise to face what I thought must have been a very large crayfish or perhaps one of the blue crab that swim in from the coast having strayed too far upland from the creek, I was completely shocked to see what had so neatly punctured my foot. With a feeling of what I can only describe as surrealistic astonishment, I looked down to see a small broad banded copperhead sitting partially coiled mere inches from my bleeding foot. It’s very strange what thoughts will course through your mind in a particularly dangerous and urgent situation. “I can’t believe that snake just bit me” was the only thought that coursed through my head as I watched it slither away to the safety of the jungle thick gully, practically gliding over my foot in the process. I didn’t move. I wasn’t afraid, but rather, I was simply shocked that I had, after so many years, actually been bitten by a venomous snake. As it vanished into the thick bush, a second strange and surrealistic thought passed through my head as I stood there, still motionless: “There’s more blood than I thought there would be”. It was now streaming down my foot in three directions, bathing the brown and gold leaves beneath my feet in a bright crimson red. As I watched the flow of blood, the reality sank in that the majority of my blood was still coursing through my body, only now it was carrying dangerous hemorrhagic venom that had already began its work of breaking down my blood vessel walls and the cells of the surrounding tissues. My mind began racing. “Stay calm and walk, you know what to do. Whatever you do, don’t panic” I told myself as I began the noticeably awkward and slow walk back to the house. “The faster you move, the faster your blood flows with that venom in it, spreading it through the body” I remembered. Being insightful enough to realize that I was not miming the actions of a tight rope walker for the fun of it, my brother Nolan asked what was up. “I just got bit by a snake”, I told him. There must have been a serious look of urgency on my face or in the tone of my voice because I had been bitten by hundreds of non venomous snakes before and, though I had not specified this one was venomous, he seemed to understand as he ran inside to alert out mother. By this point my sisters were in tears, obviously mourning my nearing and unavoidable death by copperhead. Slightly more confident in my chances, knowing only four percent of all copperhead bites resulted in death and most of those being the very young or sick, I calmly informed my mother that I had been bitten by a copperhead and that if she didn’t mind, a trip to the hospital would cheer me up considerably. To this day, I’m still unsure if her near disciplinary response of “Get in the car…” was a sign of the calmness with which she was handling the situation or the result of her aggravation that her son had finally gotten himself bitten by a snake. A combination of both, I suspect.

 

     In the car, my mentality began to change and for one moment, and that moment only, I began to lose my nerve. “What if I really could die from this?” I thought. Fighting back the emotional build up of fear, I reminded myself that cool heads prevail and that if so many people I had seen on the Discovery channel could survive the truly lethal bites of taipans and black mambas, I would surely survive the bite of a copperhead. Marveling at the speed my mother could crank out of our van, I toyed with the idea of a tourniquet, eventually deciding against it. A good decision too, as that legitimately could have resulted in the amputation of my leg, causing far more damage than the snake bit itself and would have severely affected my mile time. Pulling up to the doors of the Lake Jackson hospital, an orderly was waiting outside for us with a wheel chair. By this time, several notions I had held concerning snake bites were crushed. For starters, I had always heard the tales of fangs feeling like hot hypodermic needles upon impact, followed by an immediate and intense burning sensation. I experienced neither of these. The bite itself, as I mentioned before, felt so nearly identical to the pincer of a crab that I had abandoned the obvious logical conclusion of a snake bite in favor of this idea before actually seeing the culprit with my own two eyes. The burning sensation on the site of the bite never came at all, much to my surprise and immense delight. However, if any one thing had proven true and on schedule, it was the immense amount of swelling that was caused by the hemorrhagic venom possessed by the copperhead and his pit viper counterparts. This venom specializes in destroying tissues, specifically blood vessel walls, muscle cells, blood platelets and erythrocytes. This I first noticed making the transition between the van and the wheel chair. My leg had literally begun to look, feel, and act as if I were wearing a large sock full of jell-o.   Any defining features of the metatarsals and ankle bones were now gone. As the orderly wheeled me into the emergency room I realized that it would be quite some time before I received any serious medical treatment. The emergency room was packed and I was given an IV full of antibiotic fluids. Eventually I was moved onto a stretcher and wheeled into the emergency room, which turned out to be a cubical of curtains less than ten feet from where I had been waiting. I had expected to be treated with antivenin, the ingenious antidote for snakebites that came from the venom itself. Injecting diluted samples of venom from various snakes into the bloodstreams of horses caused the experimental equestrians to develop amazingly resistant antibodies. These antibodies are extracted from blood samples and with a little work, were manufactured into antivenin. The problem with antivenin, however, is that you can’t safely administer the serum without first knowing the type and quantity of snake venom injected through the bite(s). Easily identifying the snake was no problem for me. The urine test required to identify the quantity of venom my liver had broken down and filtered through my kidneys turned out to be a little more complicated. The actual urine test procedures were not what worried me. It was getting off the stretcher and on to the wheel chair and then repeating the reverse process that worried me. My leg had literally swollen to twice its normal size and some very real discomfort had begun to set in. Carefully, and with plenty of help, I completed the urine test, unfortunately rattling my leg several times on the way there and back, eventually finding myself atop the stretcher again some fifteen minutes later. Five minutes passed before it happened. A slow, creeping pain began to take over my entire leg from my toes to my hips. It escalated sharply and became so intense that I began to make audible groans and exclamations of pain. It became sharper and more intense with every second until I was literally gripping the sides of the stretcher in tight fists, tears streaming down my face as both my mom and dad tried, as gently as they could, to hold me down on the stretcher. Within forty-five seconds the entire stretcher was shaking with me as doctors, God save their souls forever, administered a pain killer just in the nick of time. That was the last time I ever cried over physical pain and remains, to this day, the most painful sensation I have ever experienced. Calmed somewhat by the medications, I had nothing to do but sit and wait before the test results came back and I could be treated and moved to a hospital room. I watched the clock as four hours ticked by. They next time you think you are bored, may I recommend you lie on your back, on a table, and watch a clock count off four hours? I guarantee your outlook and definition of boredom will experience a complete renovation. If you are still not convinced, I recommend you try it again, only this time, be sure to inject something toxic into your leg first.

 

     Eventually, a room became available and I was moved off the stretcher and onto a bed, crossing all fingers and one set of toes, hoping the medication would hold out during this trip, which it did. One of the nurses elevated my foot with a stack of pillows, to which I immediately protested. Despite the fact that the venom had already been circulating in my blood for the better part of five hours, I wanted whatever venom was left in my leg to stay in my leg, rather than flow downward to my vitals and, err…um… very vitals. Both of my parents knowing that even at thirteen years of age I had a much higher and more practical knowledge of venomous snakes and snake bites than the nurse, the pillows were removed upon my request. Besides, telling me “no” after the incident on the stretcher might very well have left me the healthiest -and by healthiest, I mean only living soul- in the room. About this time, the test results came back. For starters, I would not require the treatment of antivenin, which was a major plus as it indicated that my bite was not as severe as it might have been. After all, by this time I had examined the bite mark. The copperhead, due to the angle and placement of the strike, had only penetrated with one fang, the other missing completely, reducing the amount of venom that would surely have been working to destroy my bodily tissues by fifty percent. While it is true in many recorded cases that younger snakes have a more toxic venom than adult specimens, this being due to the fact that the younger, smaller and more fragile snakes cannot hold onto their prey but must kill it with one swift injection, the fact that a smaller snake will inject smaller quantities of venom, added to the bonus of the my snake’s lack of accuracy, seemed to equal this out nicely. I would however, have to stay the night in the hospital. While I was not excited about this, I decided things couldn’t get much worse than they had already. Boy was I wrong! Most people who know me are aware that I have a legitimate fear of needles. What most people don’t know is that this was where it all started. Maybe that nurse was just an intern on her first day. Perhaps she was trying to convince me to re-write my latest best-selling novel the only way she knew how. But anyway, either way, if that simple IV injection was an interrogation, you can bet the alimony I would have talked! Without noticing, she had injected the IV in the right vein, but at the terribly wrong angle. What should have been a straight IV was jetting off to the side of the vein on the inside of my elbow, causing me immense discomfort, a mistake that would not be corrected until the next day. In the meantime, I tried to take my mind off of my situation by watching a little TV. Having a limited number of channels, I started watching a show on custom mechanics who designed their own super cars. It was here that I learned what a cruel sense of humor the universe can have at times. While one mechanic showed off his favorite car to the camera crew filming the show, someone asked what he called it. All kidding aside, this is what he said: “Well, I call this one ‘The Copperhead’ because you never know what’s under the hood until it’s too late!” Remember that delirious laugh Richard Dreyfus does in JAWS, when can’t believe his ears as he listens to the lunatic mayor dismiss his warnings of a killer shark? Closing my eyes and doing my best to appreciate the cruel irony, I replicated that laugh to perfection. Calling it a day (and what a day it had been!) I did my best to fall asleep. It didn’t last long however, as I was about to discover my one and only allergy: whatever type of painkiller the doctors had given me earlier that evening! Doing my best not to touch my swollen foot to the floor, I vomited uncontrollably throughout the night.

 

     Eventually, I must have exhausted the substance from my system, or perhaps I just exhausted my system, because I somehow managed to fall asleep. The next day I was severely dehydrated but with a steady intake of water, my body began to operate on normal levels again, save for the swollen leg. Eventually a close friend dropped by after having had his appendix removed and the two of us took a photo together that I still have to this day. More friends came to visit, somewhat easing the pain and misery I had experienced the day prior. Eventually, I was allowed to go home that evening. I would spend the next two months on crutches, not even being able to stand without them and it was a full two years before I built back the lost strength and stability in my ankle. While the lessons learned were broad and many, the hardest learned was that I committed what is the cardinal sin when working with wildlife: I failed to respect a dangerous animal while in its territory. Interestingly, while I have seen more Southern and Northern copperheads since that time than any ten people will see in the entirety of their lives, I have never seen another broad banded copperhead since. Why that one broad banded copperhead made an appearance on that particular day, never to be seen again remains a mystery. One thing’s for sure though: the next time I see Mr. Murphy I might have to suggest that card game to him. In fact, I know where he can find some wood to make the card table with…