It's springtime

once again. The birds singing, frogs are croaking, bees are buzzing, and

snakes well, snakes are just snakes.

I don't like

snakes because they're sneaky ... always lying around under a piles of

leaves ... just waiting for a big juicy foot or toe to come close enough

so they can strike.

I come from

a long line of snake haters. My Dad he doesn't like snakes. My granddad

he doesn't like snakes either. His father before him and his father likewise

are all snake haters. And for good reason ... snakes have no shoulders,

and they're sneaky even fake ones.

At the tender

age of ten, my twin brother Steve had this great idea. "Don't worry,

Rick," he said. "It'll be fun." (Yes, I know it's scary,

but I do have a twin.)

"Oh no,"

I thought. "This is what Big Brother James says right before we get

into trouble. After which we all wind up out in the back yard next to

the swamp picking out switches."

Steve went

to the closet and dug out the five-foot-long rubber snake he won at the

county fair two months earlier. Fang was not your ordinary rubber snake.

He was solid rubber, three inches in diameter, and weighed in at over

ten pounds. He had a long, red, forked tongue sticking out between two

one inch white fangs hanging from the top of his large open mouth.

At the tip

of his tail, we attached a real rattle from a rattle snake. (James found

the dead snake out back in the swamp the week before.) Painted a glossy

black with ruby red eyes, our Fang was very life-like. Yes, indeed. Snakes

are sneaky, even fake ones.

Snakes can

be found on grass or dirt, under rocks, in holes, under water, and even

hanging around from low tree limbs. This spring you'll see them curled

up on the grass or sunning themselves in the middle of dirt roads. (That's

if you see them at all snakes are sneaky.)

My son asked

me when he was eight, "Dad, if snakes sun themselves all day, how

come they don't have suntans?" You know, for a kid he asks some pretty

good questions. I went out and bought him a computer and told him to look

up the answer himself. Like most kids, my son knows more about computers

than his dad does.

Most people

who are bitten by snakes do not die or even get sick. Last year in the

U.S., over 50,000 people were bitten by snakes. Only 8,000 of them involved

poisonous ones, but only twenty deaths were reported. (Humans, not snakes.)

Most venomous

snakes in the Southeast belong to a common family called pit vipers. Copperheads,

rattlesnakes, and water moccasins are considered to be pit vipers and

are all found in Georgia.

My trusty Emergency

Medical Technician book states, "...if you look carefully, you will

note a small pit below each eye of the snake. Thus giving it its name:

pit viper."

I don't think

so don't even care. It's just not a good idea to get that close to a live

snake. Just like I did not think what Steve had in mind to do with Fang

was a good idea either...

Late one Saturday

afternoon, Dad was all stretched out on the couch (back when they made

couches long enough that dads could stretch out on them). He had just

finished a long day of yard work and chasing snakes back into the swamp.

(I've seen

the man chase a black racer all the way across the yard with a weed eater.

He'd have caught up with it if weren't for the fact he ran out of extension

cord.)

Dad was sound

asleep. The perfect time, Steve thought, to throw Fang on him. As it turned

out, this was not such a good idea. Dad was not amused no, not at all.

I've never seen such a large man move so fast and use such colorful language.

Colorful skin

or discoloration around the bite is an unmistakable sign of pit viperís

injected venom. A sharp pain and swelling will accompany this along with

tissue and blood vessel damage. In the old West, cowboys cut the site

and sucked out the venom. (The old West lost a lot of cowboys that way.)

Sucking venom

is not recommended, but immediate first aid is. First, call 911. Then,

to prevent the spread of venom, a constricting band can be used located

just above the bite site. Note the time the band is placed on and inform

the medics when they arrive.

Bands in snake

bite kits are usually one and a half inches wide and made of soft rubber.

A handkerchief or scarf can be used in place of the band. Bands are not

tourniquets and should not be tightened to the point of preventing blood

flow.

Place a band

two inches above the bite and a second band two inches below the bite,

but never on top of a joint. Snug the bands to restrict the flow of blood

but donít cut off circulation to the extremity. If only one band

is available, place it one inch above the bite.

Unless a physician

has instructed you to do so, it's not recommended to put ice on the bite.

Using a constricting band will help keep the spread of venom and the destruction

of tissue to a minimum.

The destruction

of our beloved Fang was fast and furious. We saw nothing but elbows, knees

and pieces of rubber snake flying all over the front room. Not one piece

of Fang was left that was more than three inches long - the rattler was

flushed down the toilet - and then Dad turned to us. We were not to be

found anywhere in the house - all of us were already out in the back yard

next to the swamp, picking out the weakest switches we could find.

This spring,

remember to watch your step in your backyard. That nice soft spot your

foot finds might have a pair of fangs. My Dad once said, "All snakes

should be considered to be poisonous until proven otherwise by autopsies."

I concur.

[Rick Ryckeley

is employed by the Fayette County Department of Fire and Emergency Services.

He can be reached at [email protected] .]