Speaker 1: M how many times have you been bit by a
Speaker 1: poisonous snake? I really didn't keep count. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I'm guessing. On this episode of the Bear Grease Podcast,
Speaker 1: we've gone absolutely wild. As we discuss the original human
Speaker 1: fear serpents and their bikes. You'll meet a man who's
Speaker 1: been bit so many times by venomous snakes he's lost count.
Speaker 1: We'll have an enlightening conversation with the nationally recognized herpetologists
Speaker 1: about what he calls America's rattlesnake and what to do
Speaker 1: if you get bit, And we'll hear a story you
Speaker 1: wouldn't believe unless you heard it from the person it
Speaker 1: happened to, a story of tragic loss and overcoming fear.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna want to miss this one. What do
Speaker 1: you do if you get bit by a snake? The
Speaker 1: first thing I'll do is tell you that you should
Speaker 1: have planned to not get a fight and and I say,
Speaker 1: that doesn't can't you can't tell me that? My name
Speaker 1: is Clay Nukelem and this is the Bear Grease Podcast
Speaker 1: where we'll explore things forgotten but relevant, search for insight
Speaker 1: and unlikely places, and where we'll tell the story of
Speaker 1: Americans who lived their lives close to the land presented
Speaker 1: by f HF Gear, American made, purpose built hunting and
Speaker 1: fishing gear that's designed to be as rugged as the
Speaker 1: places we explore. The serpent was the shrewdest of all
Speaker 1: the wild animals the Lord God had made. One day,
Speaker 1: he asked the woman, did God really say you must
Speaker 1: not eat of the fruit from any of the trees
Speaker 1: in the garden. The Lord God asked the woman, what
Speaker 1: have you done? The serpent deceived me? She replied, that's
Speaker 1: why I ate it. Then the Lord God said to
Speaker 1: the serpent, because you have done this, you are cursed
Speaker 1: more than all animals, domestic and wild. You will crawl
Speaker 1: on your belly, groveling in the dust as long as
Speaker 1: you live, and I will cause hostility between you and
Speaker 1: the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He
Speaker 1: will strike your head and you will strike his heel.
Speaker 1: This is from the Bible, in the Book of Genesis,
Speaker 1: chapter three. This ancient text is fascinating. It highlights the
Speaker 1: long standing relationship between mankind in a very particular wild beast,
Speaker 1: one that has become a defining feature of the human experience.
Speaker 1: I believe this story has significant meaning. It holds within
Speaker 1: it the foundations of a human world view, and it's
Speaker 1: ripe with unbendable biological reality. Humans flip out when they
Speaker 1: see a snake, well at least most of them. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I didn't really get into woods heavy till
Speaker 1: I was like seven, and so I created a little
Speaker 1: bucket list of things that I wanted to accomplish, you know,
Speaker 1: turkey hunter, deer hunter, bow hunter, and I wanted to
Speaker 1: get involved with a big rattlesnake, you know, one way
Speaker 1: or the other. I just I've heard so much about him,
Speaker 1: and this is my dad, Gary Nucolm in a lifetime
Speaker 1: of searching for the mythical black panther inside joke from
Speaker 1: episode one, He's kept his eyes on the ground looking
Speaker 1: for acorns and big rattlesnakes. His fascination with nature and
Speaker 1: curious spirit tutored me into a lifelong fascination with snakes
Speaker 1: and acorns. He was ahead of his time by proclaiming
Speaker 1: a don't kill snakes policy long before it was. So
Speaker 1: I'm out in the National Forward actually wasn't, as it
Speaker 1: was warehousing land driving around and I was on a
Speaker 1: real straight road and I looked down the road. At
Speaker 1: a time I thought a quarter of a mile. It
Speaker 1: could have been two hundred yards. But I saw a
Speaker 1: log across the road, and I was already anticipating going
Speaker 1: over that log. I thought, man, I wish I could
Speaker 1: get around that thing. Well, I got up there, and
Speaker 1: it was a diamond back rattlesnake that somebody had killed
Speaker 1: and then cut the rattlers off. So this was a
Speaker 1: snake that I wanted to get involved with one way
Speaker 1: or the other, probably at the town. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: And so you know, I'd love to have had the skin.
Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you. At that time, you know,
Speaker 1: you didn't hear much about that kind of stuff. So
Speaker 1: I drove up on it and kind of went around
Speaker 1: it and pulled my jeep over and open the door
Speaker 1: and looked at this sucker, and I mean cold chills
Speaker 1: went up my back. I could not get that snake, man,
Speaker 1: I mean I just had so you were gonna get
Speaker 1: out and take it? I was gonna get it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was gonna take it. And and since the guy
Speaker 1: had taken the head and rattlers, you know, I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'll just take the hide. I couldn't touch that snake.
Speaker 1: But but I mean it was a big one. I
Speaker 1: mean it was huge. You know, it's hard to tell,
Speaker 1: but i'd say at least five feet and maybe bigger
Speaker 1: in a whole lot, bigger than the biggest timber rattler
Speaker 1: I've ever seen, and I've seen one or two really
Speaker 1: big timber rattlers. In fact, one of them was as
Speaker 1: big as you'll ever see. Well, you told us that
Speaker 1: story when we were kids, and I could have told
Speaker 1: that story word for word, just the way you told it,
Speaker 1: and so that that impacted me. That put a value
Speaker 1: system marker inside of my head that there's value on
Speaker 1: a big rattlesnake. And then how you responded to it,
Speaker 1: you know, just like it. The visual look at that
Speaker 1: snake just scared you. Well, you know, uh, it's it's
Speaker 1: almost biblical the impact it has on you. You just
Speaker 1: wonder how how I can see a bear in it?
Speaker 1: In it? You know, I respect it, but I don't
Speaker 1: scream and holler and jump back. But I see a snake,
Speaker 1: and I mean my first reaction is is automatic. It's
Speaker 1: a verbal outcry and a movement to the rear. Let's
Speaker 1: talk about getting bit by snakes in the next two interviews,
Speaker 1: we're gonna hear from some snake bite victims. I'm always
Speaker 1: very interested in the exact detail of every snake bite
Speaker 1: that I hear about. You'll recognize this first voice when
Speaker 1: you hear it, and you probably won't be surprised that
Speaker 1: this guy has been bit by a poisonous snake. I'll
Speaker 1: give you a hint of who it is. He's wearing overalls.
Speaker 1: Brent Reefs, Why does it not surprise me that you're
Speaker 1: the only friend I know that has been bit by
Speaker 1: a snake alongside having seen two legitimate mountain lions. Tell me,
Speaker 1: tell me about what year did you get bit by snake?
Speaker 1: We'll say I was nineteen years old, so it'd have
Speaker 1: been about nineteen. Where you tell me this story? Where
Speaker 1: are you at, what happened? And what kind of snake
Speaker 1: was it? Give me the whole spield. Me and a
Speaker 1: buddy of mine had been and we were going to
Speaker 1: look at a boat, an old illuminate boat that we
Speaker 1: were going to buy and get rich in the Duck Guide,
Speaker 1: Business Guide and duck Hunters. It turned out good, it
Speaker 1: did it? Actually did? Actually you were a successful duck guy.
Speaker 1: Carry on for about twenty six years. But I digress.
Speaker 1: We had gone to look at this boat, and we
Speaker 1: were going back and we were almost to the house.
Speaker 1: Out of nowhere, this big carpet head is crawling across
Speaker 1: the middle of the gravel road. I said, stop, man,
Speaker 1: that is a huge copper head. Let's catch him. He stops.
Speaker 1: We get out and I go back to the back
Speaker 1: of the truck. We run over him, you know, not
Speaker 1: we straddle him, I should say, and stop. So and
Speaker 1: when the truck goes over, he calls up in the
Speaker 1: in the road, and so I'll go up there and
Speaker 1: I put my foot. I even remember what I had on.
Speaker 1: I don't a pair overalls, a T shirt and a
Speaker 1: pair of high top converse. Yeah. I replaced the converse
Speaker 1: with crocs because they're easy to tie. But I would
Speaker 1: I put my foot on this on his head, you know,
Speaker 1: and I get his head. He's just barely sticking out
Speaker 1: from ut of the bottle of my foot, so I
Speaker 1: can reach down and grab him and have control of
Speaker 1: his head, and I don't get bit. Well, you know,
Speaker 1: there's a gravel road, and I was standing on top
Speaker 1: of a rock that was beside this snake's head. So
Speaker 1: I really was exerting no pressure on this snake's head.
Speaker 1: So when I stuck my hand down there in my
Speaker 1: left hand for some reason, he turned around and bit me.
Speaker 1: And it was like, how did that happen? And I
Speaker 1: stepped back and I told my buddy Wayne. I said, Wayne,
Speaker 1: he just bait me. He said no, he didn't, and
Speaker 1: I showed it to him and a little blood started
Speaker 1: to come out. He said, oh, my god, you're gonna die.
Speaker 1: Brent went to the hospital, received two vials of anti venom,
Speaker 1: and stayed overnight, but was no worse for the wear.
Speaker 1: He just learned a good lesson. Snake bites in the
Speaker 1: United States aren't all that common, at least if you
Speaker 1: believe statistics. Around five thousand people get bit each year,
Speaker 1: and relatively few die from snake bites in this country,
Speaker 1: but not so in other places. Worldwide, they're over five
Speaker 1: hundred venomous snakes, and to be accurate, you should say venomous,
Speaker 1: not poisonous. Estimates are hard to calculate, but it's believed
Speaker 1: that as many as a hundred thousand people die each
Speaker 1: year from snakes, many of them in Africa and India.
Speaker 1: They have some ridiculously deadly snakes in these places much
Speaker 1: more dangerous than America's snakes. The Russell's Viper is a
Speaker 1: bad boy that lives in India and Asia, and the
Speaker 1: puff Adder and black Mamba are the culprits in Africa.
Speaker 1: Everybody has a different answer for what is the most
Speaker 1: poisonous snake in the world. Some say it's the Eastern
Speaker 1: brown snake in Australia, some say the Belcher Sea snake
Speaker 1: living around the Indian Ocean. Others say the inland taipe
Speaker 1: han in Australia. It's almost impossible to nail down. However,
Speaker 1: the most venomous aren't the ones causing the most deaths.
Speaker 1: It's a complex equation based on numbers of humans and
Speaker 1: how their lives over lap with snake habitat, combined with
Speaker 1: access to modern ana venoms, and therein lies the real issue.
Speaker 1: Access to ana venom in many places is a real problem.
Speaker 1: You should research this. You're about to meet a very
Speaker 1: unique human who resides on the outskirts of human tolerance
Speaker 1: of the original fear. Mr. Fred Lally is an unusually
Speaker 1: vibrant and energetic man for his age. He looks fast
Speaker 1: and wired. He's a swift and accurate judge of character.
Speaker 1: After decades of living on the road, you'll have a
Speaker 1: pretty good beat on you after making eye contact and
Speaker 1: exchanging a few words. I found this out when I
Speaker 1: pulled off the road, walked through his yard and introduced
Speaker 1: myself to him. He was digging worms for a fishing trip.
Speaker 1: For the last fifty years, Mr Fred has made a
Speaker 1: living traveling around to America a fairs, carnivals, and festivals
Speaker 1: with an exhibit called Lally's Oddities. He's got a trailer
Speaker 1: full of head scratching and even disturbing biological rarities that
Speaker 1: at one time included two headed rattlesnakes and turtles, and
Speaker 1: eight legged pig and the skeleton of a two headed monkey.
Speaker 1: But he specializes in venomous snakes. But first I'd like
Speaker 1: to make a disclaimer. I'm extending some trust to you
Speaker 1: all and a favor by letting Mr Fred tell just
Speaker 1: a small part of his incredible life story. We talked
Speaker 1: for a couple of hours. The casual nature in which
Speaker 1: he handles getting bit by venomous snakes isn't normal, nor
Speaker 1: is it advised to take medical advice from this section.
Speaker 1: Later we'll swing the pendulum back the other direction. I
Speaker 1: want you to meet my friend, Mr Fred. Mr Fred,
Speaker 1: tell me about tell me about your relationship with snakes.
Speaker 1: It really started, I guess when I was ten years old.
Speaker 1: My daddy died and I was a lot freer than
Speaker 1: to do what I wanted. That means even venomous snakes. Well,
Speaker 1: the pigmy right where wasn't numerous? Copperheads were fairly numerous
Speaker 1: back and this is in the early forties. Well, actually
Speaker 1: this was after my dad. How old are you, Mr Fred?
Speaker 1: Eight years old? And you where did you grow up
Speaker 1: in Louisiana as specifically around Puncha Toola, Hammond, which is
Speaker 1: about fifty miles north of New Orleans. So you started
Speaker 1: catching snakes and you just liked snakes, just liked them.
Speaker 1: And now you got bit when you were young though, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think it was thirteen. Tell me what happened. Well,
Speaker 1: it was a pigmy righter. I shot a squirrel and
Speaker 1: I was butchering it down, force feeding the little pigment ratler.
Speaker 1: I didn't have anything that was that he would eat,
Speaker 1: but I do that a lot some achs. You wouldn't
Speaker 1: have to force speed him a couple of times and
Speaker 1: they realized what you put in their mouth is food,
Speaker 1: they'd just go and eat it. Now, the pigmy rattlesnakes
Speaker 1: like a lot of rattlesnakes. They're an ornerary type. Their broncos.
Speaker 1: The pigmy rattlers are yeah, now, the pigmy right. I
Speaker 1: never had any attempt, even as a youngster, to try
Speaker 1: and calm them down to where you could just freehandle them.
Speaker 1: And I read an article in a True magazine. The
Speaker 1: True magazine was nineteen forty seven, and it was about
Speaker 1: Grace Olive Wiley, the California snake Lady. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: that woman didn't matter what it was, and she called
Speaker 1: it teams. I'd use her techniques after I read that.
Speaker 1: I was probably eleven or twelve when you read that,
Speaker 1: when this pigmy rattler bitch, he bit you on the hand, yeah,
Speaker 1: I turned my head to get the second leg, the leg, yeah,
Speaker 1: and he had already sw at the first one. I
Speaker 1: put it in his mouth and partially shoved it into
Speaker 1: his throat. Then I'm back off, and I'm holding him
Speaker 1: a lot. You're holding him by the neck with one
Speaker 1: hand and feeding him a squirrel with your other hand,
Speaker 1: and uh, as I turned my head, and like I said,
Speaker 1: I loosened my grip on him a lot. Well the
Speaker 1: thing was gone now, first bite, and we didn't Is
Speaker 1: that what happened to your hand? Oh lord, No, no, no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't hardly anything. The first bite would prove to
Speaker 1: be the beginning of a lifetime of handling snakes. You
Speaker 1: heard him mention that that finger is gone. Well he's
Speaker 1: missing a ring finger in a fair chunk of his
Speaker 1: right hand. But the pigmy rattlesnake didn't have anything to
Speaker 1: do with that. Later he'll tell us what happened. Back
Speaker 1: to Fred, although I had anaplectic shock from that ceremon
Speaker 1: I wasn't Did they take you to the hospital? That
Speaker 1: would have been in the forties, did you Did you
Speaker 1: know I made a mistake? I did say the authorities.
Speaker 1: It was definitely fifty three when I was bitten by
Speaker 1: the snakes and they gave you some anivenum without testing.
Speaker 1: The doctor just panicked and he didn't test to see
Speaker 1: if I was allergic to it. It's made from a
Speaker 1: horse serum, you know that bit and all, and there's
Speaker 1: quite people are allergic to it. And I was highly allergic.
Speaker 1: I mean he gave me the shot. Within thirty seconds,
Speaker 1: I passed out. My poor mother saying there obviously thinks
Speaker 1: the rattle snakes doesn't kill me, you know, normally snakes. God,
Speaker 1: so well, you'll probably delete all this. I got bitten
Speaker 1: enough between the cotton mouths, just one copper head bite
Speaker 1: and different kind of rattle snakes, quite a few of them,
Speaker 1: and a few other exotics. It's not nearly as bad
Speaker 1: as even doctors, your general doctor. They think it's perhaps
Speaker 1: life threatening. When I say perhaps more than likely, it's
Speaker 1: almost because they they don't know how to treat them. Mostly,
Speaker 1: you're gonna tell me a snake that they panic. M hm, Well, yeah,
Speaker 1: how many times have you been bit by a poisonous snake?
Speaker 1: I really didn't keep counting, really, I mean, like like
Speaker 1: more than five. Oh, definitely, I tried to somewhat count up.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I'm guessing twenty, give or take one
Speaker 1: or two of that, right, twenty poisonous snakes. Okay, so
Speaker 1: you you started collecting and handling snakes when you're young,
Speaker 1: and you've done that your whole life pretty much, So
Speaker 1: tell me about the first time you got Have you
Speaker 1: been bit by a timber rattler, cane break, timber rattle,
Speaker 1: same thing. Yes, tell me about what happened there? How
Speaker 1: hard somebody new to help me. And as I was
Speaker 1: traveling setting up a shopping sounds at that particular time.
Speaker 1: This is in the early seventies and the cane break
Speaker 1: oh down in the Panhandle of Florida. Going along, You're
Speaker 1: in state ten, hitting towns about every miles, going into
Speaker 1: different shopping center, setting up. I got bit. I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think which hand it was. Then I got bit
Speaker 1: on my left hand, which is unusual, and it nailed
Speaker 1: me pretty good. It started swelling pretty good, got up
Speaker 1: to about here swell and started going back down and
Speaker 1: then it started retreating. Well, I mean, I'll continue work,
Speaker 1: and it doesn't seem to bother me that much, really,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean. I've had quite a few
Speaker 1: bites by that time, some of them bad. It started
Speaker 1: going back down, and you didn't go to the hospital. Oh,
Speaker 1: absolutely not h You just kept working. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, I don't want something put out that this
Speaker 1: is not bad, and I don't want to put this
Speaker 1: out that you become immune to it. But your body
Speaker 1: does build up and a body where you ever bitten,
Speaker 1: like just out in the It wasn't always when you
Speaker 1: were messing around with your pet snakes. No, because Alton
Speaker 1: the wild is my favorite thing is going out even
Speaker 1: catch them and turn loose. That's my golf, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. It's just gonna be starting off somewhat
Speaker 1: of a fun day and I'm gonna go down to
Speaker 1: New Orleans to see this animal dealer. On the way there,
Speaker 1: he asked me if I pick he wanted some cotton mouse,
Speaker 1: And that was kind of the off season when but
Speaker 1: I'm going through a swamp of thirty something miles to
Speaker 1: go to New Orleans. And there's an old highway right
Speaker 1: next to the newer highway and that old bridges they
Speaker 1: hang out there, and I usually anytime I go there,
Speaker 1: the six of this bridge, but six of the next bridge,
Speaker 1: and it might be a seven or eight mile stretcher
Speaker 1: where it's real headed. Every every bridge, it just slews
Speaker 1: it going to the road. So I can take you
Speaker 1: cotton mouse. Probably that trip down it might take me
Speaker 1: two hours. But I had on good shoes and there
Speaker 1: was one spot he didn't want any water snakes. By
Speaker 1: saw this water snake. It slides into the water. And
Speaker 1: I'm going across this old log this land there in
Speaker 1: the mud and slop very little water about that deep.
Speaker 1: And I'm up on that walking slow, and I saw
Speaker 1: I'm going to the the water. I knew where he stopped.
Speaker 1: He stopped right there. So I walk pretty much that area,
Speaker 1: and I saw his back sticking up out of the
Speaker 1: I caught him. Didn't pay any attention is to He
Speaker 1: was just getting thorn away, biting out of me. I
Speaker 1: get by the water snakes ever really vicious about biting, biting, biting,
Speaker 1: And I look down, I see that broadhead of that
Speaker 1: cotton mouth, and it's done bit me three times on
Speaker 1: you thought you were picking up a banded water snake
Speaker 1: picked up a cotton mouth, Yeah, I saw it right there.
Speaker 1: So I just slung it. I mean, yeah, I just
Speaker 1: I used to. I just slung it. I kept it.
Speaker 1: You weren't worried about that water snake biting you, Oh no,
Speaker 1: just you just figured he'd hit you a couple of times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I was getting ready of slinging. So so what did
Speaker 1: you do? You got bet three times in the arm,
Speaker 1: by in the hand, in the hand. Yeah, it was
Speaker 1: in between these two things on your right hand. So anyway,
Speaker 1: well it's on the way, maybe go to the hospital
Speaker 1: and maybe have something done, because I'm still young at
Speaker 1: this point, and I mean it was maybe a bad bite,
Speaker 1: really bad, So I'm thinking about going to the hospital.
Speaker 1: I'll go to the emergence room and sit there a while,
Speaker 1: if you know, I'll be at least yeah, I start
Speaker 1: feeling you. I wish I had time for you to
Speaker 1: hear the whole story, but it went like this. He
Speaker 1: goes to the e R and asked to just sit
Speaker 1: in the waiting room to see if it gets bad.
Speaker 1: The doctors said, no way, we're giving you the an event.
Speaker 1: Mr Fred denies the treatment for financial reasons, but also
Speaker 1: because of his allergic nous to an event him. He
Speaker 1: then takes a taxi to another hospital, where they allow
Speaker 1: him to wait it out in the are They offered
Speaker 1: to take him in an ambulance, but no, sir, not
Speaker 1: Mr Fred. The taxi was a more affordable way to travel.
Speaker 1: He never received an a venom and later just went home.
Speaker 1: Mr Fred, what does it feel like to get bit
Speaker 1: by a snake? Can you describe that to me? There's
Speaker 1: a similarity of the same thing to all of them.
Speaker 1: The actual physical aspect of their things going into your
Speaker 1: skin and all. It's it's all negligible, not much to
Speaker 1: it at all. It deals more like sometimes you catch
Speaker 1: yourself on a brawer. Even you feel a little bit,
Speaker 1: but it's not no big deal, you know what I mean,
Speaker 1: nothing big at all, and or wasp. When it stings,
Speaker 1: you have instantaneous hot, searing pain sometimes, especially the big
Speaker 1: old red wah. Well, they put a wall upon you.
Speaker 1: Only one time that I experienced something like that. I
Speaker 1: got bit on this thumb here. It's messed up a
Speaker 1: little bit thinking. They doesn't grow straight, it bends over
Speaker 1: and I've got different sensations to this day. That's messed
Speaker 1: up from nerve damage. It put a thing in onto
Speaker 1: there and gave me a pretty good wall. Oh it hurt.
Speaker 1: So typically, what does it feel like on a normal
Speaker 1: snake bite? Like you you feel the impact, but then
Speaker 1: it kind of just moves up your arm tensions swelling.
Speaker 1: The swelling starts producing a lot of uncomfortable pain, deep
Speaker 1: aches or setting in. I know, it's kind of gradual.
Speaker 1: It kind of just starts creeping up your yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of swelling, yeah, and then discoloration some have
Speaker 1: more discoloration than the others. I'm not sure what causes that.
Speaker 1: Why don't why don't you tell me specifically what happened
Speaker 1: to your hand? Now? Which what kind of snake did
Speaker 1: that bite? A big Western diamond back a little of
Speaker 1: five maybe, and they had to cut off on your fingers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I told him going to cut this finger off
Speaker 1: too at the time. See this finger was ruined one
Speaker 1: from another bite. Can can you tell me all the
Speaker 1: different types of snakes you've been bit by? I mean,
Speaker 1: let's just walk through them. Well, like I said, cotton mouth,
Speaker 1: copper head, rattle snake, even the coral snake. It was
Speaker 1: a drawd bite. I don't think I got one bitter
Speaker 1: down on Karma. And then the Pope's tree vipers from
Speaker 1: Asia they called two step Charlie. During the Vietnam War,
Speaker 1: that was a very popular thing. They were talking about
Speaker 1: two steps Charlie. They've seen guys and get bit and
Speaker 1: money to fall over dead. It's about like a copper
Speaker 1: head bite. And so that's I think that's five snakes,
Speaker 1: five different snakes. And then a banded Egyptian cobra. Yeah, yep,
Speaker 1: I just said banded Egyptian cobra. Mr Fred went into
Speaker 1: an elaborate story on getting bit by this exotic serpent
Speaker 1: and not getting any medical treatment, but I simply couldn't
Speaker 1: fit it into the podcast. I'll tell you about at it.
Speaker 1: On the render. They were again, I got a dry
Speaker 1: b from a king cobra. Only one thing, but it
Speaker 1: opened my finger up, literally to the bone. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: just said he got dry bit from a king cobra. Okay,
Speaker 1: let let me let me go through them again. Then
Speaker 1: copper head watermarks and multiple types of rattlesnakes, pig me
Speaker 1: timber rattler, diamondback and u and then that pit viper,
Speaker 1: Pope's tree viper, then a coral snake, then a banded
Speaker 1: Egyptian cobra, and then a dry byte of a king cobra.
Speaker 1: So that's seven species of poisoned snakes you've been bit by. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I didn't get any of thenom from the coral
Speaker 1: snake either. Okay, that's right. I'd say that's a pretty
Speaker 1: good resume there for snake bites. Well, hey, I mean,
Speaker 1: you're still alive at eighty years old and in good health, folks.
Speaker 1: I want to say a few things. Every state has
Speaker 1: different laws regarding captive snakes and taking them out of
Speaker 1: the wild. Much of Mr Fred's work was done decades ago. Secondly,
Speaker 1: I don't want to minimize or give anyone the idea
Speaker 1: that they shouldn't go to the hospital if they get bit.
Speaker 1: But I feel like Mr Fred has earned the right
Speaker 1: to share his story, of which he didn't ask to tell.
Speaker 1: I pride one more thing on Mr Fred. He has
Speaker 1: the utmost respect for snakes and cringes at their mistreatment
Speaker 1: or their senseless killing. Lastly, we're about to nerd out
Speaker 1: into some snake biology and it's fascinated. But if for
Speaker 1: some weird reason you don't like that, I will ask
Speaker 1: a favor of you, and that's to listen until the
Speaker 1: very end. The last story told on this podcast you
Speaker 1: will never forget. Dr Chris Jenkins is a herpetile just
Speaker 1: with a long list of accolades. Aside from being a
Speaker 1: North Georgia Turkey and deer hunting Jedi master, he's the
Speaker 1: executive officer of the Orient Society, which works to conserve
Speaker 1: critical habitat for imperiled reptiles and amphibians. He's also the
Speaker 1: host of Snake Talk podcast, which you should check out.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask him about snake bites, timber, rattlesnake biology,
Speaker 1: and what to do if you get bit Meet Dr
Speaker 1: Chris Jenkins. Dr Chris Jenkins, I have always been fascinated
Speaker 1: with snakes, and specifically rattlesnakes. In EO. Wilson's book titled Biophilia,
Speaker 1: which is roughly translated into Love of Life, he suggests
Speaker 1: that humans have been so successful on planet Earth because
Speaker 1: of our fascination with living creatures and living animals, and
Speaker 1: that fascination has a pendulum, and that pendulum would go
Speaker 1: from like us loving puppies and quala bears all the
Speaker 1: way to a deep and almost irrational fear of snakes.
Speaker 1: Like we have this incredible relationship with snakes as humans
Speaker 1: and have for like a long time. Why do you
Speaker 1: think people are so afraid of snakes? Well, the first
Speaker 1: thing I'd say is that while we as humans maybe
Speaker 1: want to put snakes into another category of animals or
Speaker 1: another category of nature, I have spent my entire career
Speaker 1: and the one thread that I see that goes throughout
Speaker 1: everyone I encounter is a fascination. And I always like
Speaker 1: to say nobody's indifferent to a snake. Let's say you've
Speaker 1: been walking the same trail near your house every day. Uh,
Speaker 1: you see a gray squirrel. You might see thirty gray
Speaker 1: squirrels on that walk. You might get to the point
Speaker 1: where where you just kind of you don't you don't
Speaker 1: even notice that particular squirrel. But snakes are different. There
Speaker 1: are very few humans on this planet that would be
Speaker 1: moving and they pass a snake and they would do nothing.
Speaker 1: It just it just like just brings out these very
Speaker 1: intense emotions and they can range widely. As you mentioned,
Speaker 1: they can be excitement. Are there other animals that do
Speaker 1: the same thing. I would think so, and they can.
Speaker 1: They typically classify they have some similar aspects to them, like,
Speaker 1: for example, things like sharks, spiders, maybe some of the
Speaker 1: large mammalian carnivore animals. People notice those. And to get
Speaker 1: to your question about fear, I really do believe that
Speaker 1: it is a combination of genetic aspects that are in
Speaker 1: our DNA that have allowed us to survive so many
Speaker 1: years by avoiding predation, combine with a huge amount of
Speaker 1: education or learning, you know, so on that that genetic side.
Speaker 1: While there are very few snakes on the planet that
Speaker 1: could eat a human, now it does happen, but incredibly rare.
Speaker 1: You know, historically there would have been very very large
Speaker 1: snakes on the landscape that fed on primates. There's this
Speaker 1: snake called Titana boas and you'd be amazed to see
Speaker 1: how large this snake is. And so they're there, and
Speaker 1: there are studies that are confirming this, that there is
Speaker 1: a component of us where we understand that this could
Speaker 1: be a predator. But the more interesting part, and I
Speaker 1: do think that the bigger part is the learned part.
Speaker 1: I want to talk to you about the foundation of
Speaker 1: that fear ultimately, is that a human would be bit
Speaker 1: by a poisonous snake. Right, let's talk about the probabilities
Speaker 1: of being bit by a snake, and as we go further,
Speaker 1: I want to specifically talk about rattlesnakes. What are the
Speaker 1: chances in the probability these of being bit by a
Speaker 1: snake here in the United States? You know, so first
Speaker 1: I would say that it varies so much across the country,
Speaker 1: depending where you are, the density of people, the density
Speaker 1: of snakes, types of snakes. But in general, if you
Speaker 1: take a state like Georgia where I live, that is
Speaker 1: a um you know, we have fairly high snake diversity
Speaker 1: of six species of venomous snakes. We certainly have multiple
Speaker 1: venomous snake bites a year. Even in the county that
Speaker 1: I live in, where we only have timber rattle snakes
Speaker 1: and copper heads, we usually have at least one, if
Speaker 1: not multiple snake bites per year. However, I will say
Speaker 1: you don't First of all, you don't want to get
Speaker 1: a snake bite, a venomous snake bite. They're all different,
Speaker 1: the venoms different, but it can make you very sick
Speaker 1: and can kill you. But if you just look at
Speaker 1: the raw probabilities in the United States of your chances
Speaker 1: of dying from a venomous snake bite, they're much much
Speaker 1: low or than than so many other things you do.
Speaker 1: The truth is, if you're going to go to a
Speaker 1: nature preserve and you're going to go for a hike,
Speaker 1: the most dangerous thing that you did was drive there.
Speaker 1: You have a much higher probability driving there. And most
Speaker 1: people are not petrified to the point where they wouldn't
Speaker 1: go in the woods because they had to drive the
Speaker 1: I mean, there are other notable things. You know. Your
Speaker 1: chances of dying safe from a stinging insect is much
Speaker 1: greater than dying from a rattlesnake bite in the US,
Speaker 1: or if you want to go ride a horse. Notice
Speaker 1: he didn't say mule. Very interesting, and those things people
Speaker 1: are probably you know, have some fear around horses, or
Speaker 1: have some fear around stinging insects, but it's not the
Speaker 1: type of horrific fear that might keep people out of
Speaker 1: the woods that that snakes bring about. Dr Jenkins, can
Speaker 1: you tell me about, on average, how many people in
Speaker 1: the United States die of snake bites each year? Well,
Speaker 1: I'd answer that first by comparing the number of people
Speaker 1: who get snake bites to the number who die, and
Speaker 1: so thout there are thousands of venomous snake bites in
Speaker 1: the United States every year, which might sound like a
Speaker 1: big number. That's actually not very big if you compare
Speaker 1: that to some other types of injuries you might incur
Speaker 1: in a typical year. It's only a handful of people,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly less than twenty, and it might be
Speaker 1: much less than that. I would suspect less than ten
Speaker 1: your average die from a venomous a wild snake bite.
Speaker 1: So if you think about that, your chances are incredibly low.
Speaker 1: That number of people. More than that number of people
Speaker 1: die every day in vehicle accidents million people in the
Speaker 1: United States, and less than twenty die per year from
Speaker 1: snake bites. I mean, you have a higher probability of
Speaker 1: death by almost anything. What's so interesting about that is
Speaker 1: that our fear of snakes and our fear of dying
Speaker 1: from snake bite it is like very, very large. It
Speaker 1: feels like in broad society compared to the actual data
Speaker 1: of the possibility of you dying from a snake bite.
Speaker 1: That's some really good marketing from the from the snake
Speaker 1: bite people. I guess maybe the snakes themselves. They've marketed
Speaker 1: their bites pretty good to make us this fearful for
Speaker 1: this long man. Yeah, no, that's that strong marketing campaign
Speaker 1: for snake bites. And I don't want to minimize despite
Speaker 1: a low number of deaths. Still, you know you don't
Speaker 1: want to receive a venomous snake bite. I mean, it
Speaker 1: can have long lasting impacts on your life in a
Speaker 1: variety of ways. It can leave you maimed, you can
Speaker 1: lose you can survive but potentially lose certain limbs or
Speaker 1: have other long term problems. So, but your chances of
Speaker 1: dying are very low. I want to specifically talk about
Speaker 1: the timber rattler that is in the United States before
Speaker 1: we dive into that. How many species of rattlesnakes are
Speaker 1: there in the United States. Well, like all fields of biology,
Speaker 1: this is changing rapidly. But let's just say that there
Speaker 1: are about thirty two species of rattlesnakes, some of them
Speaker 1: going all the way down into South America. So what
Speaker 1: I'm calling a timber rattler, and I'm kind of just
Speaker 1: using that as just the naming convention that I've heard
Speaker 1: people around here use their whole lives, velvet tells, timber rattlers,
Speaker 1: cane brake rattlers. What what is the scientific name of
Speaker 1: that species? Yeah, I mean a common name, as you said,
Speaker 1: is just that it's a common name. The Latin name
Speaker 1: for a timber rattlesnake is Crotalus horridus. You're right when
Speaker 1: you mentioned cane brake. People think of cane brakes sometimes
Speaker 1: as a different species, but cane brakes and timber rattle
Speaker 1: snakes are actually the same species. But timber rattlesnakes can
Speaker 1: look very very different depending where in the country that
Speaker 1: you find them. Describe the geographic region that the timber rattlers.
Speaker 1: In timber rattle snakes are an amazing snake and that
Speaker 1: I like to call him a merry Ricca's snake, in
Speaker 1: that they are really one of the most wide ranging species.
Speaker 1: You can find them. Historically they're now gone from Maine,
Speaker 1: but historically you could find them in the northeast up
Speaker 1: to Maine, and then they come down all the way
Speaker 1: south into northern Florida, and they go west into Texas
Speaker 1: and then back up north into kind of the northern
Speaker 1: Midwestern states states like Minnesota and Wisconsin. So really wide
Speaker 1: ranging snake lay by far overlap with human populations, much
Speaker 1: more than than any other snake in the US um
Speaker 1: and then they've we've just used them as as such
Speaker 1: a symbol, the symbol of a rattlesnake on a don't
Speaker 1: tread on Me flag. Are there rattlesnakes on other continents.
Speaker 1: There are rattlesnakes on on South America, you know, through
Speaker 1: Central America and into South America. There are many vipers.
Speaker 1: So rattles snakes are a member of the family vipara
Speaker 1: day and there are vipers on most continents in the world.
Speaker 1: And it's actually thought that vipers came over the Burringian
Speaker 1: land bridge, you know up in where we think of Alaska.
Speaker 1: Like a lot of other animals shout out to Josh
Speaker 1: spilmmakers land bridge, mustache separ grease render inside joke, you're
Speaker 1: all invited. And then really diversified into the rattle snakes.
Speaker 1: And we think they did that somewhere kind of in
Speaker 1: the southwestern US and Mexico, so where they only North
Speaker 1: and South America are the only places that have rattle snakes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they are a new world group of species. They do
Speaker 1: run some islands still within North America, you know, islands
Speaker 1: off of you know, say the West Coast and in
Speaker 1: the Gulf and the Caribbean. But in general, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: they are a new world species. Talk to me about
Speaker 1: the rattle Dr Jenkins, what biologic advantage does that attle rattlesnake? Well,
Speaker 1: it's thought, of course, we don't know exactly. If we
Speaker 1: could interview them this this biology thing would be a
Speaker 1: lot easier. But no, with the rattle. One of the
Speaker 1: theories is that these animals evolved from these some of
Speaker 1: these vipers that came over from Asia. They evolved in
Speaker 1: a landscape where there are a large of large ungulates,
Speaker 1: things that might step on you. But the idea is
Speaker 1: that the rattle is really a defensive mechanism. It's a
Speaker 1: warning if a bison's near you or humans coming around.
Speaker 1: There's some interesting kind of examples off of islands off
Speaker 1: of North America where rattlesnakes have moved to those islands
Speaker 1: many many, you know, thousands of years ago, and on
Speaker 1: those islands there are no large mammals, no predators, and
Speaker 1: over time, while those animals are still rattlesnakes, they no
Speaker 1: longer have a rattle, so they were just trying not
Speaker 1: to get stepped on. I'm no scientist, Dr Jenkins, but
Speaker 1: I'm like, in this theory makes sense to me. I mean,
Speaker 1: clearly they're using it as a as a warning, you know, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that's some other good evidence is is the
Speaker 1: things we haven't seen the rattle used for our So
Speaker 1: for example, they don't use the rattle in luring prey
Speaker 1: like a feeding type, or you know, the males don't
Speaker 1: rattle to attract females, and if that was the case,
Speaker 1: you would expect female rattlesnakes not to have them. Let's
Speaker 1: talk specifically about timber rattlesnakes. I grew up with timber
Speaker 1: rattlesnakes and just had a massive fascination with them. You've
Speaker 1: you've described this large geographic area where timber rattlers are.
Speaker 1: Are there places inside that jurisdiction where there are more
Speaker 1: than others? Can you tell me where most of them are?
Speaker 1: The timber rattlesnake First of all, one of the reasons
Speaker 1: it's been so successful is it's been able to get
Speaker 1: into very extreme environments. So you do find them at
Speaker 1: high elevation. I've seen them over five thousand feet here
Speaker 1: in the southern Appalachians, and they go all the way north,
Speaker 1: you know, I mentioned uh, you know Maine. Historically they
Speaker 1: used to be in Ontario. But there are certain places
Speaker 1: where they're doing relatively well. I'd say one of the
Speaker 1: hot spots for timber rattlesnakes were probably a good numbers
Speaker 1: still remain, good densities still remain would be kind of
Speaker 1: the central Appalachian region, so places like Pennsylvania, they're Virginia's um.
Speaker 1: The other place that they're probably doing really well would
Speaker 1: be kind of in that cane break part of the
Speaker 1: range down here in the southeast, down in the coastal plain.
Speaker 1: Um in many places in the coastal plain they're doing
Speaker 1: really well. But there are other places. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think in Arkansas, for example, in the Ozarks, and I
Speaker 1: think they're doing relatively well. They're probably comparable to this
Speaker 1: Southern Appalachian region. On the flip side of that, there
Speaker 1: are places where they're doing very poorly. And those are
Speaker 1: typically places at the fringes of the change. So if
Speaker 1: you go to the northern midwest Minnesota, Wisconsin, or you
Speaker 1: go to the northeast, they're gone from Maine, They're gone
Speaker 1: from Rhode Island. There's one population left in New Hampshire, too,
Speaker 1: left in Vermont, a handful in each of Massachusetts and Connecticut,
Speaker 1: so they're up there. They're one of the most endangered species.
Speaker 1: So if you were looking at a mountain in the
Speaker 1: Southern Appalachians, is there a place on that mountain where
Speaker 1: you would go to find a snake? And I'm not
Speaker 1: suggesting someone go try to find one, but just but
Speaker 1: are there places on the mountain like where I see
Speaker 1: rattlesnakes in arkansass and some of the roughest, rockiest, most
Speaker 1: remote country. I would assume that is because there are
Speaker 1: populations of snakes in that remote country that haven't been
Speaker 1: is harassed by humans, you know that hadn't for the
Speaker 1: last two fifty years been killed by humans that have
Speaker 1: seen them, and they've kind of you have these hubs
Speaker 1: and these like more remote areas, rough rocky is that
Speaker 1: is my anecdotal observation hold true? Yeah, I would think
Speaker 1: it kind of course scale you certainly would be correct,
Speaker 1: But at that micro scale that you mentioned in areas
Speaker 1: where they've disappeared from or in very remote areas, they're
Speaker 1: gonna need some of the same things. And the other
Speaker 1: important thing to know about rattlesnakes. I always like to
Speaker 1: tell people rattlesnakes have a biology. To people kind of
Speaker 1: minimize them to like an environment where they don't think
Speaker 1: much about what they do. But rattlesnakes do very particular
Speaker 1: things very certain times of the year. And so you're
Speaker 1: seeing them in very rough, rocky country. So there are
Speaker 1: certain times of the year that that timber rattlesnakes will
Speaker 1: often focus on those types of environments. Those are oftentimes
Speaker 1: but not always, where they will have their overwintering dens
Speaker 1: are in fissures and rocks where they can go underground
Speaker 1: and escape cold temperatures. These are areas where the females
Speaker 1: go to raise their body temperatures and preparation for giving birth.
Speaker 1: Those are often the areas that animals who are gonna
Speaker 1: do anything like physiologically challenging, meaning like if they're going
Speaker 1: to shed their skin, or if they've eaten and they
Speaker 1: need to digest, they'll oftentimes go to rocky areas um
Speaker 1: And that's to raise their body temperature because they don't
Speaker 1: maintain a constant body temperature like we do. But the
Speaker 1: other piece of that is an observer bias, meaning that
Speaker 1: you know when you go to these rocky areas. First
Speaker 1: of all, it's a type of environment that you might
Speaker 1: key in on more um than any particular little grove
Speaker 1: of oak trees. So I can guarantee you though over
Speaker 1: your years you've walked by so many rattlesnakes out in
Speaker 1: these hardwood forests and just never known them. They're they're
Speaker 1: much much harder to see. I've had snakes that have
Speaker 1: radio transmitters, so I'm following them. I know where they are,
Speaker 1: and I'm standing there in an open oak forest and
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I've circled this area and I know that
Speaker 1: there is a rattlesnake within like five yards in front
Speaker 1: of me, and I have a technician standing five yards away.
Speaker 1: We're looking at each other. We know the rattlesnakes in
Speaker 1: front of us, we cannot see it. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden, just like appeared, and I just realized
Speaker 1: that the snake was sprawled out full lengthwise in front
Speaker 1: of us. And I've seen tens of thousands of rattlesnakes
Speaker 1: in the wild. My point is is that there is
Speaker 1: an observer bias as well. Let's talk about rattlesnake camouflage.
Speaker 1: Your story is fascinating that you could be that close
Speaker 1: to rattlesnake and not see it, and I think many
Speaker 1: of us have experienced that. Tell me about rattlesnake camouflage,
Speaker 1: and this is really across many species. But timber rattlesnakes,
Speaker 1: I think of them as a hardwood associated rattlesnake. Those
Speaker 1: hardwoods dropped their leaves and and just produced this kind
Speaker 1: of canvas of a forest floor with just an incredible
Speaker 1: complexity of texture of color. And so a rott dottle
Speaker 1: snakes body looks like that color wise. And also interestingly,
Speaker 1: snakes have different types of scales, and rattlesnakes have what
Speaker 1: are called keeled scales, which means each of their scales
Speaker 1: has a little bit of a ridge on it, like
Speaker 1: a keel on a boat. That texture on their body
Speaker 1: is you know, one of the functions that is likely
Speaker 1: to help with the camouflage. It's like they're wearing a
Speaker 1: Gilli suit as opposed to you know, just a regular
Speaker 1: camo shirt. It's like it's like three D camo. I mean,
Speaker 1: you know, like light hitting it. If there's a ridge,
Speaker 1: it means that there's two different angles on a single scale,
Speaker 1: which I think would create a visual nuanced difference in
Speaker 1: the way. Yeah, three D Gilly sue. Wow, that's fascinating.
Speaker 1: I mean, rattlesnakes make their living not being discovered, whether
Speaker 1: they're hunting, you know, they're they're sitting weight predators. They
Speaker 1: don't want you know, say visual prey to see them.
Speaker 1: They don't want potential predators to see them. They don't
Speaker 1: want people to see them. You know, you might walk
Speaker 1: right by one and they would never make a noise.
Speaker 1: If you discover them, they're probably going to use that
Speaker 1: rattle that we have talked about, this warning system, and
Speaker 1: they're going to try to slowly move away. And the
Speaker 1: last thing they'll do is if you try to touch
Speaker 1: them in some form or get close enough, is they'll
Speaker 1: bite you because you have to almost touch or step
Speaker 1: on a rattlesnake. That's that's one of the big myths
Speaker 1: that that these animals are leaping through the air and
Speaker 1: chasing you down. Um. A rattlesnake typically bite and this
Speaker 1: is with the perfect perch, you know, great kinetic energy
Speaker 1: built up and something to push against. You know, they're
Speaker 1: they're striking half to a third of the length of
Speaker 1: their body, so you almost have to touch them to
Speaker 1: get a bite. You said a phrase there that they're
Speaker 1: sit and wait predators, and that's the perfect lead into
Speaker 1: my next question is how do they hunt and what
Speaker 1: and what do they eat? So how do they hunt?
Speaker 1: What do they eat? Well, most rattle snakes and timber
Speaker 1: rattlesnakes eat rodents. As they get larger, they'll typically eat
Speaker 1: larger rodents. So you think of things like your little paramiscus,
Speaker 1: your kind of forest mice, squirrels, chipmunks, um, rodents like that. Um,
Speaker 1: But they're not active predators in the sense they're not
Speaker 1: chasing these animals down. What they do is they travel
Speaker 1: through the forest and they use their tongue. You've probably
Speaker 1: seen snakes flicking their tongue. What they're doing is they're
Speaker 1: picking up chemicals in the environment and running them across
Speaker 1: an organ that they have in their mouth. And you
Speaker 1: could almost think of it like a really really intense
Speaker 1: sense of smell to the level where rattlesnake moving through
Speaker 1: the forest tongue flicking is probably like, oh, there was
Speaker 1: a chip monk here probably three or four days ago,
Speaker 1: but a mouse came through here an hour ago, and oh,
Speaker 1: a human stepped right there four days ago, like really
Speaker 1: fine tuned chemical reception type mechanism. And what they do
Speaker 1: is they go through the forest and they use those
Speaker 1: chemicals to decide where to hunt. So you have to
Speaker 1: think that they're looking for places that rodents travel frequently.
Speaker 1: So you might think of a rattlesnake at the base
Speaker 1: of a tree where squirrels are frequently going up and
Speaker 1: down a down log, that are rodents running a clock
Speaker 1: cross or just other trails, And then they set up
Speaker 1: on these trails and they get in kind of a
Speaker 1: hunting position where they're coiled up and kind of primed
Speaker 1: to strike, and then they use the pits. We haven't
Speaker 1: talked about it, but these are pit vipers um and
Speaker 1: and so they have kind of if you look at
Speaker 1: their face, they have a nostril, but they have an
Speaker 1: extra hole there which is the pit. And this pit
Speaker 1: essentially allows them to sense heat, which allows timber rattlesnakes
Speaker 1: to do a lot of foraging at night. But the venom,
Speaker 1: it is a fine tuned chemical cocktail that rattlesnakes have
Speaker 1: for feeding. First thing it does is it allows the
Speaker 1: snake to kill its prey without having to rest soil
Speaker 1: with it. It's the difference between you being able to
Speaker 1: shoot that elk from a hundred yards with your thirty
Speaker 1: six as opposed to you going in and trying to
Speaker 1: kill it with a tomahawk, and you have a much
Speaker 1: greater chance of getting injured by that elk. They just strike,
Speaker 1: inject the venom and they get away from that animal,
Speaker 1: and then the venom kills the prey. You know, Then
Speaker 1: the prey runs off and the venom kills it, and
Speaker 1: you know, the snake then has to find that in
Speaker 1: a maze of rodent chemicals all through the forest, and
Speaker 1: it uses the chemical signature of its own venom to
Speaker 1: track down prey that its venom is killed. And then finally,
Speaker 1: most rattlesnake venoms, and certainly timber rattlesnake venom is then
Speaker 1: also used in digestion and that helps them eat really
Speaker 1: large meals compared to their body. So while their stomach
Speaker 1: and their digestive system is digestive from the outside, the
Speaker 1: venom is breaking down and digesting this rodent from the inside.
Speaker 1: The positive side of that as well is that a
Speaker 1: three and a half a timber rattlesnake his venom is
Speaker 1: not designed to kill a hundred and eighty pound human.
Speaker 1: If if we're continuing to build these like rational ideas
Speaker 1: that make us not afraid of snakes. You know, you
Speaker 1: have this idea you get bit by a snake, you
Speaker 1: know you got an hour before you're dead, And not
Speaker 1: to minimize it in any way, but like that venom
Speaker 1: is designed to kill a squirrel, yes, I will say,
Speaker 1: and that timber rattlesnakes, of the venomous snakes in their
Speaker 1: range in the east are fairly toxic. Say you know,
Speaker 1: a timber rattlesnake bite on average would be a much
Speaker 1: more much much more significant bite than say, like a
Speaker 1: copper head or cotton mouth some other venomous species you'd find.
Speaker 1: What what about the age of snakes, Chris, It takes
Speaker 1: a it takes a snake a female, how long to
Speaker 1: become reproductively active? And how long can a snake live? So,
Speaker 1: first of all, rattlesnakes, timber rattlesnakes in particular, live much
Speaker 1: longer than most people might imagine. There are timber rattlesnakes
Speaker 1: alive today that we know are over fifty years old,
Speaker 1: and we don't know what that upper ceiling is. Like
Speaker 1: you mentioned female rattlesnakes, they can take and kind of
Speaker 1: extreme environments, meaning like really far north, like high latitude
Speaker 1: or high elevation. These snakes can take eight nine years,
Speaker 1: ten years maybe to reach sexual maturity. And then the
Speaker 1: females don't give birth every year. They can go to
Speaker 1: three four maybe in some cases five years in between
Speaker 1: a pregnancy. And so you can have some female rattlesnakes
Speaker 1: that you know, they might only have two or three
Speaker 1: opportunities to have a litter of young snakes, and they
Speaker 1: don't have many snakes. They're not some snakes have hundreds,
Speaker 1: but rattlesnakes. Timber rattlesnakes are not like that. You know,
Speaker 1: they'll have somewhere. You know, it could be five somewhere
Speaker 1: in that ballpark. They have evolved to have a very
Speaker 1: long life too. For a female rattlesnake to replace herself,
Speaker 1: she has evolved a life history strategy that requires her
Speaker 1: to live a long time. That's fascinating, fascinating. That's a
Speaker 1: great way for me to ask you. The question at hand,
Speaker 1: Dr Jenkins, is what do you do if you get
Speaker 1: bit by a snake? We we run on this default
Speaker 1: mechanism that we think we know what we would do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I live my whole life in snake country,
Speaker 1: So I mean anytime I leave my house and it's
Speaker 1: above sixty degrees sixty degrees, there's a chance and I
Speaker 1: get bit by a snake. And apparently I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm competent enough to handle that. I don't know if
Speaker 1: I ever not. I've never been bit by by poisonous snake.
Speaker 1: Tell me what you do. Clay Nucomb is out in
Speaker 1: the mountains by himself, coon hunting on a warm fall night,
Speaker 1: and I get just slam dunk bit on the calf
Speaker 1: by big four ft timber rattler. I'm three quarters of
Speaker 1: a mile from my truck, I'm alone. What do I do?
Speaker 1: I won't go into it in great depth, but the
Speaker 1: first thing I'll do is tell you that you should
Speaker 1: have planned to not get a bite. And and I say, then,
Speaker 1: can't you can't tell me that? I will? I will.
Speaker 1: I will get to what to do in that situation.
Speaker 1: But I will say that the most effective way to
Speaker 1: deal with a snake bite is to not get one.
Speaker 1: They're already very rare. And there's a few very simple things, um,
Speaker 1: that you can do. And you know, as a sportsman
Speaker 1: or somebody you know, say a wildlife biologist or a
Speaker 1: forest or somebody who spends a lot of time potentially
Speaker 1: coming in contact with snakes, I would invest in a
Speaker 1: pair of snake gators. Many sportsmen wear them anyways, Um,
Speaker 1: if you're in snake country, you should take that precaution.
Speaker 1: The other precaution you should take is have a plan.
Speaker 1: Most outdoor people have a plan for different things. So
Speaker 1: what to do if you are back in the others
Speaker 1: are and you get that bite. Perhaps the best way
Speaker 1: to start that is what don't you do? So there
Speaker 1: are so many things that people have been taught to
Speaker 1: do with snakes. You know, you could still go buy
Speaker 1: snake bite kits at Walmart that have like a razor
Speaker 1: blade in it, for example, to cut and suck. Don't
Speaker 1: want to do that. Myths about drinking alcohol, about using cold,
Speaker 1: about using electricity like a little shocking device on the bite,
Speaker 1: none of that is helpful, and in fact, much of
Speaker 1: that can actually have a negative impact. The other thing
Speaker 1: I would say is that about twenty five to fift
Speaker 1: of all venomous snake bites are dry, which means they
Speaker 1: don't put venom into you snakes. Snakes can control or
Speaker 1: meter whether they deliver and approximately how much venom they deliver,
Speaker 1: but you have to you have to treat it like
Speaker 1: it has because you don't know, and a timber rattlesnake
Speaker 1: could be life threatening. The two key components to to
Speaker 1: dealing with a snake by in almost any situation are
Speaker 1: very intuitive. Their transportation and communication. You know, you could
Speaker 1: back in the ozarks quite a ways, and if you
Speaker 1: get a rattlesnake by it could potentially kill you. You You
Speaker 1: need to have a way to call for help, and
Speaker 1: if you can, in most situations, have other people come
Speaker 1: to you. So in this planning I'm talking about, you
Speaker 1: don't don't walk out it if you could be if
Speaker 1: someone could drive to you, don't walk out. You have
Speaker 1: this venom in you. The venom is going to be
Speaker 1: pumping through your body and you know, so you're probably
Speaker 1: increasing the chances that that venom gets to things like
Speaker 1: your lungs and your heart, things that could kill you
Speaker 1: and there. But there's a trade off. You know, if
Speaker 1: you completely isolated, say put on a tourniquet, then you're
Speaker 1: gonna very likely lose that limb that you have tourniqueted off.
Speaker 1: So I would say I would rarely use a tourniquet,
Speaker 1: but I wouldn't completely write that off because you know
Speaker 1: in Australia, know they use tourniquets Oftentimes. You would have
Speaker 1: to be really remote a long ways from UH medical
Speaker 1: help and think that you have a really serious venom
Speaker 1: dose to to ever think about applying a tourniquet. Time
Speaker 1: is everything with a venomous snake. By the longer you wait,
Speaker 1: the more of those molecules are going to be attached
Speaker 1: to your blood cells, and the more damage you're gonna have. Basically,
Speaker 1: you need to get out of the woods as fast
Speaker 1: as possible, but with the least energy of the person
Speaker 1: that's bit being expelled. If I was in the Cranberry
Speaker 1: Wilderness in West Virginia, very large wilderness, and I'm in
Speaker 1: the middle of it, and I get a bite, and
Speaker 1: I know it's going to take me a couple of
Speaker 1: days to get out, I think I have a serious bite.
Speaker 1: I am going to get on the SAP phone or
Speaker 1: the in reach again. I am going to call for
Speaker 1: help and have them come get me. Um. If I
Speaker 1: am on a relatively small day hike and say I'm
Speaker 1: less than an hour from the truck, I'm still going
Speaker 1: to communicate. I'm going to start shooting people text messages,
Speaker 1: let them know what's happening. I'm here and I'm walking out,
Speaker 1: because I could pass out before I could go down
Speaker 1: before I get out. But I would probably try to
Speaker 1: walk out and uh, you know, I would do things
Speaker 1: like take off jewelry, take off rings. Um. So I
Speaker 1: don't have constriction points that are going to cause a
Speaker 1: lot more damage. I might if I had a bite
Speaker 1: on the hand, I might kind of hold that bite
Speaker 1: kind of not above my head to help the venom
Speaker 1: get towards my heart or not down low, so it
Speaker 1: kind of wells up in my hand kind of mid
Speaker 1: level and walk out. And you always communicate with a
Speaker 1: hospital that you're gonna go to, even if you're coming out,
Speaker 1: you want them to know you're coming, because the things
Speaker 1: that they need to treat you may not be at
Speaker 1: that hospital. The story you're about to hear is quite shocking,
Speaker 1: and we'll pull the pendulum back from the lighter side
Speaker 1: of snake bites that you've heard about from Mr Fred
Speaker 1: and even Brent. This one will put into perspective the
Speaker 1: seriousness of a snake bite. You're about to meet Lisa
Speaker 1: Damn Run from Northern Georgia. I think you'll agree after
Speaker 1: you hear her story that she's a pretty incredible lady.
Speaker 1: She's being interviewed by Dr Jenkins, and there are a
Speaker 1: few details you'll need to know. The snake in this
Speaker 1: story is an adult timber rattlesnake and Lisa is pregnant.
Speaker 1: Here is her story. My husband and I have actually
Speaker 1: gone on just an impromptu date night and we had
Speaker 1: just gotten home and I pulled into the driveway, stepped
Speaker 1: out of the car and on our date night we
Speaker 1: had gone gotten gotten groceries because you know, um, and
Speaker 1: I had stepped out of the car and stepped to
Speaker 1: the back seat just to grab a couple of bags
Speaker 1: of groceries and felt the only way I can describe
Speaker 1: it would be extremely forceful. I felt like somebody hit
Speaker 1: me with a hammer that had a point on it
Speaker 1: as hard as it could. And I was wearing sandals
Speaker 1: and the snake got just me, no strap, no shoe, nothing,
Speaker 1: so I felt at all. And it was so forceful
Speaker 1: that I remember looking up because I never thought that
Speaker 1: it had come from the ground. Um. I thought something
Speaker 1: had to have fallen on me or something like that.
Speaker 1: And my husband said that I jumped back. I don't
Speaker 1: really remember, because it's sort of I think I went
Speaker 1: into shock. UM. And he came around the car and
Speaker 1: he said, I just kept saying, what was that? It hurt?
Speaker 1: What was that? And it wasn't until he came around
Speaker 1: and he said, oh my gosh, it's a snake that
Speaker 1: I even knew what had happened. But I looked down
Speaker 1: at that point and I remember seeing it curled up
Speaker 1: in the driveway and its head was up looking at
Speaker 1: my husband and its tail up rattling at him. Just
Speaker 1: warning him like to stay back that point it went
Speaker 1: under the car, and my husband told me to jump
Speaker 1: in the car and let's go. So we took off
Speaker 1: at that point. So that's where we were. So you
Speaker 1: see the bite actually happened on your foot is where
Speaker 1: I was on my foot, on the top left side
Speaker 1: of my left foot, so you you get the snake bite.
Speaker 1: Your husband said, let's let's get into the car. How
Speaker 1: many months pregnant were you I was seventeen weeks pregnant,
Speaker 1: so almost halfway the pregnancy. So you guys get in
Speaker 1: the car, and then what happens? Uh? He dialed nine
Speaker 1: on one and took off, driving very quickly down the
Speaker 1: road straight toward our hospital because we just figured that's
Speaker 1: where we need to go UM. But he also called
Speaker 1: nine on one and as he was on the phone
Speaker 1: with them, they had called the hospital and found out
Speaker 1: they were actually out of anti venom because someone I
Speaker 1: think had been bitten the week before or something and
Speaker 1: they didn't have anymore. So they advised us to just
Speaker 1: go to UM where an ambulance was waiting for us
Speaker 1: just down the road. And when we got there, I
Speaker 1: was obviously very upset at this point because It was excruciating,
Speaker 1: but also I was worried about about my son, so
Speaker 1: I was upset and crying. And when we got to
Speaker 1: the paramedics, they actually then could tell it was pretty
Speaker 1: severe and had called a helicopter in. So you were
Speaker 1: up here in the mountains at you know, a small
Speaker 1: mountain hospital, and the helicopter picked you up up here. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they took me from here down to an hour away
Speaker 1: so to a different hospital. So what happened when when
Speaker 1: the helicopter landed and you got to the hospital in
Speaker 1: the larger city. Unfortunately, that's where my story gets um
Speaker 1: not great. The e er didn't really know what to
Speaker 1: do because I was pregnant. They just kept saying they
Speaker 1: weren't sure if anti venom was safe for someone who's pregnant.
Speaker 1: And it was a very busy night that night. I
Speaker 1: remember there being beds in the hallways, other patients and stuff.
Speaker 1: And so they left me laying there for a long time,
Speaker 1: many many hours, with nothing. And because I was pregnant,
Speaker 1: I wouldn't even take pain killers, and so I just
Speaker 1: laid there in a lot of pain, and every thirty
Speaker 1: minutes they would come in and take a sharpie and
Speaker 1: mark my leg and after a lot of time I
Speaker 1: had gone by, it's clear it wasn't stopping, and they
Speaker 1: were at least halfway up my thigh at that point, marking,
Speaker 1: and they decided to start the anti venom at that point,
Speaker 1: what was the pain level, like, would you say during
Speaker 1: that part of the process, The actual by itself and
Speaker 1: the you know, when the venom initially started to take
Speaker 1: over was excruciating. It was like I remember describing it
Speaker 1: like it was like lava was all over my foot
Speaker 1: while things were stabbing me and poking me and a
Speaker 1: lot of pressure. It was just it was really interesting.
Speaker 1: It never felt anything else like it. So they make
Speaker 1: the decision that well, to save your life, they need
Speaker 1: to start administering anti venom, but they're unsure about what
Speaker 1: might happen to the baby. So what happened next? So
Speaker 1: then when I got to IC you and nurse came in,
Speaker 1: the very first nurse I had, and she started asking
Speaker 1: me questions like, well, what did they say, since you're pregnant,
Speaker 1: you know they're going to be any side effects and
Speaker 1: he does will be birth effects anything like that? I said,
Speaker 1: They never did say. They never really seemed to find
Speaker 1: out and she said, I'm gonna call crow fab and
Speaker 1: that was the first time I'd even heard the name
Speaker 1: crow Feb. I didn't even know what that was. I
Speaker 1: was like, who's that? She said, as he makes the
Speaker 1: anti venom. Let's see if they know anything, and she
Speaker 1: came back in the room within twenty minutes with all
Speaker 1: kinds of information for me actually that it was perfectly safe.
Speaker 1: There's no side effects whatsoever, so maybe feel a lot
Speaker 1: better about the whole situation. Unfortunately, because they did wait
Speaker 1: too long, I did end up losing my son. Um
Speaker 1: I was written on the twenty one June, and on
Speaker 1: the twenty three June his heart stopped. So I was
Speaker 1: still an ic U spent until the twenty five, and
Speaker 1: I see wasn't until then I was released and then
Speaker 1: sent to labor and delivery. Unfortunately at that point, so
Speaker 1: it actually took a couple of days for your son's
Speaker 1: heart to stop beating. Said, yeah, it was the twenty one,
Speaker 1: but it was at nine fifteen at night, and then
Speaker 1: it in the morning, I found out, So it wasn't long.
Speaker 1: They were obviously monitoring him. Was it a sudden thing
Speaker 1: or was it something that you all realized he was
Speaker 1: battling for life as well. It seems sudden to me, Um,
Speaker 1: when I found out my brother, who's actually a doctor,
Speaker 1: was in the I see you with me, just visiting.
Speaker 1: And so when they came in that that morning to
Speaker 1: do the ultrasound, he knew, Um, he could see and
Speaker 1: he knows what he's looking at, and so he actually
Speaker 1: followed the doctor out and asked, could I please be
Speaker 1: the one to tell her? And he told me, and
Speaker 1: then they actually allowed him to look over the day
Speaker 1: before and his heart rate had been dropping. Well, it
Speaker 1: seems like a big part of your story actually has
Speaker 1: to do with what happened or didn't happen at the hospital.
Speaker 1: So do you have any advice for people on how
Speaker 1: they can be advocates for their own treatment in this
Speaker 1: type of situation? Yeah, definitely. I mean, if anyone here's
Speaker 1: my story, especially if they're pregnant in their bitten, just
Speaker 1: know you should get anti venom. For one. I didn't know,
Speaker 1: and I even had people texting me like, I've been
Speaker 1: googling it and it seems fine, Like just even a
Speaker 1: quick Google search could kind of tell you that it's
Speaker 1: perfectly safe, and the quicker you get it, obviously the better,
Speaker 1: so for for your recovery and for your unborn child
Speaker 1: if you were pregnant. I have learned to be more
Speaker 1: of an advocate for myself and my family in medical field,
Speaker 1: because you know, I think they're the doctors are great
Speaker 1: and everything, but they don't know everything they know. One actually,
Speaker 1: in the almost week I was in the hospital and
Speaker 1: I see you labor delivery, you are not a single
Speaker 1: person who cared for me had ever had a patient
Speaker 1: bit by a venomous snake that was pregnant. Not one person.
Speaker 1: So you know they're not going to know everything. Well,
Speaker 1: I want the I want the audience to know that
Speaker 1: Lisa and I are sitting at a table in my
Speaker 1: office and there is a cage between us with a
Speaker 1: rattlesnake in it. I could literally, if the case, if
Speaker 1: the snake was not in the glass, either Lisa or
Speaker 1: I right now could reach out and touch that rattlesnake.
Speaker 1: And given this environment that we're sitting in, I wanted
Speaker 1: the last question I wanted to ask is how has
Speaker 1: this experience impacted how you think about snakes? Yeah, before
Speaker 1: living up here, you know, I knew that they were around,
Speaker 1: and so we we thought we were being aware and
Speaker 1: watching out. Um. But I wasn't fearful or you know,
Speaker 1: afraid of them. Um. Right after the experience, I think,
Speaker 1: given the fact that it wasn't just trauma for me,
Speaker 1: it was trauma plus grief. Um, it took a pretty
Speaker 1: large impact on me for a while. I had a
Speaker 1: really unrealistic fear of snakes for a while there. Like
Speaker 1: I was afraid to get out of bed in the mornings,
Speaker 1: thinking there might be a snake on my floor. I mean,
Speaker 1: it was just and I knew it was silly. I
Speaker 1: knew it was unrealistic, but I couldn't help it. I
Speaker 1: was very afraid. Now, after some time has gone by,
Speaker 1: and you know, I've educated myself and our children and
Speaker 1: things like that, I'm actually not afraid at all. I
Speaker 1: just I've made myself get out. It took a little
Speaker 1: a while. I didn't even want to get out in
Speaker 1: the woods and go high I can and do things
Speaker 1: that I used to enjoy. Um, But I kind of
Speaker 1: made myself just go and do it and tell myself
Speaker 1: it's gonna be okay. And it has been okay. And
Speaker 1: now I actually find myself advocating for snakes a lot
Speaker 1: of times. I'll see people you know on Facebook make
Speaker 1: a post and they'll people will constantly talk about them
Speaker 1: and say things like, uh, only good snake is a
Speaker 1: dead snake and stuff like that. People love to say
Speaker 1: things like that, and I'll speak up and be like, no,
Speaker 1: that's not true. You know. I feel like if anybody
Speaker 1: has the right to feel that way, it would be me,
Speaker 1: and I don't. So people just I don't know. They're
Speaker 1: not bad, they're not. I don't just be watching out.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't I'm not afraid anymore, which
Speaker 1: I'm thankful for, because it really was hard there for
Speaker 1: a little while. But I've gotten past it. I was
Speaker 1: taken aback by Lisa's concluding statements of advocating for snakes
Speaker 1: and not living in fear. I would say that her
Speaker 1: response is powerful and inspiring. In conclusion, snakes are a
Speaker 1: cog in the wheel of the human experience. They're part
Speaker 1: of our lives. They live in the woods where we
Speaker 1: hike and hunt. They live in our yards, They live
Speaker 1: in our dreams and haunt our unconscious thoughts. The ancient
Speaker 1: mechanism at work and humans creating this innate fear and
Speaker 1: fascination with snakes is undeniable. My mother Juju, dedicated a
Speaker 1: fair part of her life to warning me about snakes.
Speaker 1: I now realized that my life would be incomplete without
Speaker 1: them and those warnings. It's almost like we needed a
Speaker 1: villain to learn the highways of human relationship. My mother's warning,
Speaker 1: combined with an instinct to not trust long slithery crew,
Speaker 1: has taught me to trust her to obey her, which
Speaker 1: ultimately ushered me into successful human life. Where would we
Speaker 1: be without snakes? And from my dad I learned that
Speaker 1: snakes inhabit the wild places of the earth, and what
Speaker 1: would a wilderness be without the possibility of coming on
Speaker 1: a big timber rattlesnake. I guarantee I will never not
Speaker 1: be excited when I see one. To me, they represent
Speaker 1: an uncontrollable wildness, which is something that I crave engagement with.
Speaker 1: It's my hope that we've presented a balanced view of
Speaker 1: snakes that will garner a deep respect for them in
Speaker 1: two ways. Number One, they can take your life or
Speaker 1: alter it in a significant way. Number Two, a wild
Speaker 1: place isn't wild at all without them. I encourage you
Speaker 1: to check out Dr Jenkins Snake Talk podcast to learn
Speaker 1: more about snake conservation. Long Live the beast and the
Speaker 1: ancient human mechanisms that make us who we are. Thanks
Speaker 1: a ton for listening to the Bear Grease Podcast. Please
Speaker 1: leave us a big slithery review on iTunes and share
Speaker 1: this podcast with your buddies. We'll see you next week
Speaker 1: on the Bear Grease Render