SNAKEBITE!

What happens if you get bitten on the finger or thebleepgod forbid !!!!!

Mate, haven't heard of that one. Our training in the Army is to put on a compression bandage covering the entire limb. Don't wash or clean the wound - so that they can Id the type of snake. Immobilise and get help.

I don't know what good it's going to do by trying to suck out the poison - as it's into the blood stream etc very quickly and in some cases the effect can be almost immediate. All you would be doing is sucking out any residual poison that hasn't been used - which wouldn't be of any effect.

We have the most poisonous land snakes in the world and a lot of research has been done on the best form of treatment. As a result techniques here are generally accepted as best practice.

The compression bandage is recognised as the best form of first aid, certainly for our venoumous snakes as it restricts the movement of poison flow through the blood stream.

The cup and suck method goes back to the old days and has long been discounted as an effective first aid technique. I was amazed 20 years ago when I was in the US to see that they were still selling snake bite kits that included razor blades and instruction to cut and suck - like in the old western movies.

Just goes to show how far advanced we are with snake bite treatment. The best place to get bitten by a snake (if there is such a place) is Australia.

Well Guys,

You are right and you are wrong. there is a lot of issues in snake bite, not just the compression bandage, and if you really go bush you should read up on it.

No movement, no torniquet, etc, and this info is available to you if you want it.

The truth in this discussion is that snakes have evolved differently on different continents, and in Oz we apply a compression bandage that stops the lymphatic return but is not tight enough to cut off the circulation (you should be able to slip 2 fingers under it.) Cut off circulation and you will loose that limb.

In North America and Asia if you have a suction device you use it immediately and do not use compression as the venom produces a powerful local toxin that will kill local tissue if confined by a compression bandage. If help was a long way off you would use compression and pay the price.

If you are bitten by a sea-snake you would use compression, if you make it that long.

There is an excellent survival medicine book which costs around $10 and may save your life. It is called "First Aid and Survival in Mountain and Remote Areas". I think you can locate it thru www.treksafe.com.au.

One of the 4x4 mags did a medical article last year that was non-sense and could cost lives. I spoke to them, but they didn't care much. Be careful which "expert" you listen to.

It is probably easier not to get bitten.

regards
Ian

Davoe i think if you took this snake bit kit to any of the first aid trainers be they ambo's St John's, Red Cross any emergency ward, they would need first from laughing so hard !! Maybe back when first was just starting this type of kit was the norm, i remember my fathers snake bit kit, it was a wooden cylinder that pulled apart to reveal a little knife with some stuff in the handle to put on the wound after you cut it, being a stockman thats what you carried back then.

Baz, ya can take the boy out of the bush but ya can't take the bush outa the boy.

Hi Davoe,

Take Carl's advice as he is spot on for current Australian treatments.

In Queensland ambulance vehicles snakebite kits are very simple and consist of three or four broad conforming bandages and that is all.

In the old cut and suck days there were a number of deaths of people trying to carry out this treatment so you ended up with two patients instead of the initial one.

Cheers