J
Josh Dimpfl
Guest
Tuesday night I get a phone call from a buddy of mine, Kyle, stating he found a nice looking Eastern Kingsnake (L.g.getula) while cruising and that I -had- to see it, it was special. So while trying to squeeze out of him what was special about the kingsnake he interrupts saying "Whoa whoa whoa, let me call you back" Immediately assuming he caught a copperhead, since copperheads are just about as common as leaves down here in the piedmont of NC. Well, he got to my house a bit later and whipped open his passenger side door of his truck to get the bag he put the kingsnake in. I noticed in a tub there was a decent sized copperhead, male. Now, some of you are thinking (Why did he collect the kingsnake and copperhead? why not just let them be?) well, we wanted to get photos and data on the animals. I'll explain later. Anywhom, after showing the 'rents the nice little king, which turned out to be aberrant.
My buddy Adam showed up, we were planning on going cruising. Well, this is where mistakes happened. We removed the copperhead and placed him in the bag the kingsnake was in, we were going to release him on the way to cruise. Adam set him in the back seat of his Blazer and I hopped in the back seat along with it. However, when I reached down to grab the bag and place him in the far back of the Blazer, I noticed the bag jump and I felt some pricks in the thumb. I sat there for a second and calmly said "Guys, we need to goto the hospital, I just got tagged by a copperhead" of course no one believed me, I guess it was because I was so calm. Well, after going back inside to tell the 'rents I was headed to the ER, Adam told me we had to go, so we headed out. Let me tell you, for those who've never been bit, it's a very abnormal feeling, almost like liquid fire running through your veins. We got to the hospital about 10 minutes earlier. Keep count on the minutes and hours, it's interesting. I went inside and told the lady at the front desk that I was tagged by a copperhead, she calmly typed some things up on the computer and put a band around my arm and told me to go sit down. Seriously, what the *****? Anywhom, I sat there in a waiting room chair for about 20 minutes or so before someone finally called me to go back. They ran my vitals, etc and sent me to a room. It wasn't too bad by that time, which was maybe 15 minutes after waiting. My arm was swollen pretty bad and i can see it swelling up my arm. I continued to wait until they sent my folks and my buddies Kyle and Adam back. They administered 1 shot of morphine to help for pain, which we later found out (10 minutes later) had no affect. Meanwhile, the pain was beginning to get worse, it felt as if my veins were literally going to pop out of my arm. After a few more shots of morphine I felt no pain, but became quite drowsy. The doctor came in and told me pretty much what I knew already, asked me if I was sure it was a copperhead...No, it was a bite from a ratsnake...I'm a biology student, I'm not ignorant. (No two cents) So, after the doc was telling me about the antivenom, I jokingly threw out "Whats the name of the antivenom?" and the doctor looked at me puzzled and said "Cro...cro....cro..." and I interrupted and said "CroFab?" he looked at me and said "Yeah! that's it!"....Oh boy...GET ME OUT OF HERE. So after waiting 4 hours for Crofab to thaw (yeah, it was frozen....6 vials of it) they administered it to me. I soon had a reaction to it and they gave me a shot of benedryl. Most of the rest is pretty fuzzy because I was both in and out of consciousness, but I do remember waking up at 5am, them deciding to transfer me to a larger hospital in Charlotte, me going into the ambulance, me coming out, and then lying in my new room in Charlotte.
The ninja turtle was given to me by Adam while I was lying there in the bed, just so you were wondering.
Now, fast forward 7 days to tonight, exactly 11 minutes from typing this sentence I was tagged. The bleeding/draining had stopped. I can move my other digits on that hand a bit, but barely. The thumb is still incapable of movement because of the swelling but atleast most of the pain is gone. I can't feel my thumb what so ever. My NEW toxicologist up in Charlotte believes with a few weeks of continuous self-therapy, I'll be able to write fine. Get this, college classes started on the Wednesday after I got tagged, and I have an english course. Today was the first day to the class and he's most understanding. Which is cool. I appreciate those who called me to see how I was doing, even if I was drugged up on painkillers (Sorry Daniel Dye, that morning you called, I was pretty much in la-la land), and I'll be ready to catch hell.
For those who have been tagged by venomous herps, I'd like to see some photos or stories!
For those wondering about the copperhead, since I have a legal collectors permit allowing me to collect up to 2 copperheads, we ended up keeping him, I've used him this past sunday at the reptile and amphibian day at work to educate the locals. (I work at a natural history museum). Adam and Kyle jokingly has dubbed the copperhead "Josh".
Update 8/28/08 - 9 days after envenomation.
Things are still swollen, it hurts to move my thumb still. I'm still unable to write and it is still difficult to type with my left hand. It looks worse today than it did on tuesday, things are blacker and I can tell my body is healing up...slowly. Anywhom, here's some photos from today.
My buddy Adam showed up, we were planning on going cruising. Well, this is where mistakes happened. We removed the copperhead and placed him in the bag the kingsnake was in, we were going to release him on the way to cruise. Adam set him in the back seat of his Blazer and I hopped in the back seat along with it. However, when I reached down to grab the bag and place him in the far back of the Blazer, I noticed the bag jump and I felt some pricks in the thumb. I sat there for a second and calmly said "Guys, we need to goto the hospital, I just got tagged by a copperhead" of course no one believed me, I guess it was because I was so calm. Well, after going back inside to tell the 'rents I was headed to the ER, Adam told me we had to go, so we headed out. Let me tell you, for those who've never been bit, it's a very abnormal feeling, almost like liquid fire running through your veins. We got to the hospital about 10 minutes earlier. Keep count on the minutes and hours, it's interesting. I went inside and told the lady at the front desk that I was tagged by a copperhead, she calmly typed some things up on the computer and put a band around my arm and told me to go sit down. Seriously, what the *****? Anywhom, I sat there in a waiting room chair for about 20 minutes or so before someone finally called me to go back. They ran my vitals, etc and sent me to a room. It wasn't too bad by that time, which was maybe 15 minutes after waiting. My arm was swollen pretty bad and i can see it swelling up my arm. I continued to wait until they sent my folks and my buddies Kyle and Adam back. They administered 1 shot of morphine to help for pain, which we later found out (10 minutes later) had no affect. Meanwhile, the pain was beginning to get worse, it felt as if my veins were literally going to pop out of my arm. After a few more shots of morphine I felt no pain, but became quite drowsy. The doctor came in and told me pretty much what I knew already, asked me if I was sure it was a copperhead...No, it was a bite from a ratsnake...I'm a biology student, I'm not ignorant. (No two cents) So, after the doc was telling me about the antivenom, I jokingly threw out "Whats the name of the antivenom?" and the doctor looked at me puzzled and said "Cro...cro....cro..." and I interrupted and said "CroFab?" he looked at me and said "Yeah! that's it!"....Oh boy...GET ME OUT OF HERE. So after waiting 4 hours for Crofab to thaw (yeah, it was frozen....6 vials of it) they administered it to me. I soon had a reaction to it and they gave me a shot of benedryl. Most of the rest is pretty fuzzy because I was both in and out of consciousness, but I do remember waking up at 5am, them deciding to transfer me to a larger hospital in Charlotte, me going into the ambulance, me coming out, and then lying in my new room in Charlotte.
The ninja turtle was given to me by Adam while I was lying there in the bed, just so you were wondering.
Now, fast forward 7 days to tonight, exactly 11 minutes from typing this sentence I was tagged. The bleeding/draining had stopped. I can move my other digits on that hand a bit, but barely. The thumb is still incapable of movement because of the swelling but atleast most of the pain is gone. I can't feel my thumb what so ever. My NEW toxicologist up in Charlotte believes with a few weeks of continuous self-therapy, I'll be able to write fine. Get this, college classes started on the Wednesday after I got tagged, and I have an english course. Today was the first day to the class and he's most understanding. Which is cool. I appreciate those who called me to see how I was doing, even if I was drugged up on painkillers (Sorry Daniel Dye, that morning you called, I was pretty much in la-la land), and I'll be ready to catch hell.
For those who have been tagged by venomous herps, I'd like to see some photos or stories!
For those wondering about the copperhead, since I have a legal collectors permit allowing me to collect up to 2 copperheads, we ended up keeping him, I've used him this past sunday at the reptile and amphibian day at work to educate the locals. (I work at a natural history museum). Adam and Kyle jokingly has dubbed the copperhead "Josh".
Update 8/28/08 - 9 days after envenomation.
Things are still swollen, it hurts to move my thumb still. I'm still unable to write and it is still difficult to type with my left hand. It looks worse today than it did on tuesday, things are blacker and I can tell my body is healing up...slowly. Anywhom, here's some photos from today.
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