The prairie rattlesnake needed only a second to bite Stephanie Stover; Stover needed almost a year to recover from the bite.
"I always thought if you were bit by a rattlesnake, you went to the doctor and you were fine," Stover says.Instead, doctors almost had to amputate her right hand.
Stover, 22, a mounted ranger in the nearby park, Garden of the Gods, had just finished a trailside break last summer when she unwittingly put her right hand on a rattlesnake while pushing herself to her feet.
"I thought I had pricked my hand on a yucca plant," says Stover. "Then I saw the snake and I realized I had fang marks on my hand. It didn't even rattle until after it bit me."
Her hand started tingling immediately. In five minutes, it swelled and turned purple and green, and Stover got a bad taste in her mouth. In 10 minutes, "it felt like my internal organs were being tied in knots. My throat tightened and I couldn't breathe."
She was rushed by ambulance to the hospital and intravenously given antivenin - an antitoxin made of horse serum. But her pain was just starting.
Her hand continued to swell until circulation to it was cut off. Five hours later she had a fasciotomy - cuts in tissue deep in the skin to relieve pressure so blood could get to her fingers. It would save her hand from being amputated, she was told.
After five days in the hospital, Stover returned home with the rashes and swollen joints that are common reactions to the antivenin.
"I felt like I was 100 years old," Stover says. "I could hardly move."
She's spent the last nine months in therapy, trying to regain full use of her hand. Her fingers still turn white and numb in the cold.
While a rattlesnake bite is uncommon (fewer than 100 a year are reported to the Rocky Mountain Poison Center) and it is rarely fatal, the consequences are dire. Just ask Stover.
Although she's seen two snakes - including a rattler - since she was bitten, she still hikes and rides horseback, and may return to her Garden of the Gods job this summer.
"Now I'm careful. And paranoid. But I just watch where I walk. And where I put my hands. And I still believe that rattlesnakes are non-aggressive."
Western rattlesnakes are indeed non-aggressive, experts say. But rattlers as aggressors have become a part of American folklore. How many times has the dusty cowboy of the silver screen been held hostage under a rocky cliff by a viper or awakened to find one in his sleeping bag?
"These animals are totally maligned because of ignorance," says Gretchen Arnold, a wildlife interpreter at Bear Creek Nature Center. "People have an unrealistic and unnecessary fear of snakes. Snakes have a marvelous place in the world. Without them, we'd be up to our knees with bubonic plague-carrying rodents."
Rattlers don't crawl into sleeping bags for warmth. They don't suck milk from cows. And they aren't attracted by television antennas.
They strike only in defense.
"All Western rattlesnakes are shy and unaggressive," Arnold says. "They want nothing to do with humans, and if given the opportunity they will leave. They only attack if they're hassled, cornered or harassed. Leave them alone and you'll be fine."
Fatal snake bites are rare. Someone bitten by one has only a slightly better chance of dying from the bite (1 in 3.4 million) than of winning the lotto. More people die from lightning hits than from venomous snake bites.
The surest way to identify a rattler is, of course, by its rattle of thin, dry skin. The rattle grows each time the rattler sheds its skin. But beware: A rattler doesn't always rattle before it strikes.
There's no venom in 20 percent of rattlesnake bites and only a mild reaction to 20-30 percent of the venomous bites.
"There's only five or 10 deaths a year out of 50,000 snakebites in this country," Phillips says. "There's a greater chance of dying driving to the hospital."
Traditional back-country treatment has changed in the last three years. The old "cut, suck and tie" rule of making an incision, sucking out the venom, and tying a tourniquet between the bite and the heart was found to do more harm than good, Phillips says.
And get rid of your old snake bite kit, he says.
The only recommended kit is the Sawyer Products Extractor. If used within three minutes after a bite, its vacuumlike syringe removes up to 30 percent of the venom. It's available for about $17 at sporting goods stores.
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Watch where you walk, wear ankle-high boots
To prevent snakebite, follow these guidelines:
- Watch where you walk and where you put your hands.
- Wear ankle-high boots.
- Don't put arms or legs into concealed places.
- Don't handle a snake, even if you think it's dead.
- If you come upon a rattler, freeze, then back away slowly. Rattlesnakes have poor vision, primarily relying on heat sensors for detection of prey and danger.
- Even if you can't see a rattlesnake, if you hear its warning rattle or hiss, back away slowly from the sound.If you are bitten, follow this treatment plan:
- Stay calm. Increased heart rate will quicken the circulation of the venom.
- Get to a doctor as quickly as possible.
- Treat for shock if medical treatment isn't immediately forthcoming. If the victim becomes light-headed, clammy and sweaty, lie them down and elevate their feet only as high as their heart.
- Send one person for help and leave another with the victim if you're in back country and on-site treatment is necessary. Never leave a victim alone.
- Use a Sawyer Extractor; it is the only snakebite kit recommended by doctors, and is considered marginally effective.