Bee Sting? No, a copperhead bite ... in a Longhorn Steakhouse!

[Rader Sidetrack]

OK, this is only peripherally about bees, but the bee blame part is what amused me in reading the story ...

Woman gets bitten by copperhead at Longhorn Steakhouse restaurant

SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, Va. — Rachel Myrick’s first thought as she walked through the entrance to the LongHorn Steakhouse at Southpoint II and felt a sharp pain in her left foot was that she’d been stung by a bee, or possibly a hornet.

She tried to brush it off and keep going, but said that she felt such an excruciating pain as she took the next step that she dropped her cellphone, her wallet and her 13-year-old son Dylan’s hand.

“I had my fingers under my foot and that’s when I felt something moving,” said Myrick, a Fredericksburg Realtor.

She’d been bitten twice on her toes and once on the side of her foot by a roughly 8-inch-long copperhead that had managed to get into the Massaponax restaurant’s foyer. It was still attached to her sandal-shod foot until she shook it loose.

Myrick had gone to the restaurant for dinner on Sept. 12 with her son, boyfriend Michael Clem and some of Clem’s friends and family.

Clem said he looked around for a bee when Myrick first started screaming and crying. Then he spotted the copperhead.

Read the rest here:
https://www.ems1.com/ems-oddities/ar...se-restaurant/

[Phoebee]

I read that in a report from Richmond's WTVR tonight.

Those little baby copperheads are, I believe, more dangerous than the adults. Apparently the babies have unusually potent venom, or perhaps they tend to deliver all they have in one aggressive bite, rather than conserving it as adults do.

Some years we get several copperheads around the cabin where we have our apiary. This year it was two timber rattlesnakes. Both species tend to be remarkably laid back, and I can catch them with my snake hook or snake grabber, drop them in a bucket with a lid, and relocate them a half a mile down the ridge where they would have to cross a couple of streams to reach our place.

Treating these bites is frightfully expensive. The antivenin has been going for some insane price like $10k a shot, and treatment can involve multiple shots. Doctors seem to think it is not working and keep giving more. This may be one of those drugs with a single supplier who believes they can charge what they want.

[Slow Drone]

The venom of a juvenile copperhead is actually not as potent as an adult. The difference in being bitten by a juvenile versus an adult is the juvenile hasn't developed control of the muscles that aid in delivering the venom therefore they deliver a full load. Adults have learned to control the amount of venom dispensed therefore they don't deliver a full load of venom. A snake that has used all of their venom will go hungry a lesson juvenile snakes had not learned yet but adults have and are frugal in their use of venom.

[Phoebee]

My encounters with them so far, both adult copperheads and timber rattlers, is that they're normally pretty calm and unwilling to bite people. This is not just a matter of conserving venom so you don't go hungry, it is a matter of not losing a fang or risking being trampled by something way too big to be prey. One of the copperheads I've removed from our patio I first noticed when I looked down and saw it coiled right beside my foot, calmly looking up at me. Another one was peering out from under a stack of paving rocks when we were paving that patio, about 6 inches from my hand.

My pet corn snake had a habit that the pit vipers are reported to show, striking with her mouth closed. It was rare for her to strike, but when she did she was just attempting to make me leave her alone. Most animals probably back off from a striking snake, without noticing if the mouth is open or not. This is like bees bumping rather than stinging.

[Lburou]

We had a similar instance four doors down from me this summer. When they called me for assistance and first aid advice, we thought it might have been a scorpion bite because of the single bite mark on the finger. The neighbor lady was cleaning some freshly cut twigs and branches under a shrub when her finger started to hurt. We knew it was not a bee or wasp, that left scorpions to blame.

One thing led to another and they wound up at the emergency room. The Dr. on duty had seen these symptoms and single bite wounds before. He thought it was a snake bite and suggested that the snake wasn't intending to be mean, just saying, "go away". Venom is actually produced at a high price and snakes will preserve it. No antivenom was administered. She was over it in ten days, but it hurt for a while.

When the neighbor got back home, he went out to finish picking up the cut branches and found a full sized copperhead still in the same place. Killed it.

[Phoebee]

There seems to be some debate among the experts regarding copperhead bites ... administer antivenin or not. The bites are rarely fatal for adults, although they may be for individuals with weak hearts, or for children. But they do cause a lot of tissue damage, some of which may be permanent.

A case here in Northern Virginia last year racked up a medical bill of over $100 k. This was due to going thru something in excess of 12 vials of antivenin. Apparently the response to this stuff is not dramatic, and I suspect physicians inexperienced with snake bites may tend to over-do the treatment if they see no immediate improvement, or if they see swelling continue to increase.

A recent conference of experts suggested that, in copperhead bites, bad reactions to antivenin may be as great a risk as the venom itself. With rattlesnakes, the balance more clearly favors treatment, as their venom is far more potent.

[Greeny]

My grandmother was bitten on her foot by a copperhead more than 50 years ago. She told me it was painful and she was unable to walk on it for a while, but no medications were given. She said the Dr. told her that copperhead bites weren't nearly as dangerous as water moccasin or rattlesnake and generally better off not treated.