Many of the experiences of my life have been just a few
moments long, and as such are difficult to put into writing. And just as many are of moderately short
duration, and are very memorable, but still are difficult to put into
writing. The problem I have in writing
this one is that it was of short duration; however, it has had a lifelong
effect upon me. Looking back at it is
no more fun today than it was when it occurred over fifty years ago, although I do need
to face my demons and come to terms with the fact that I was bitten by a snake.
I was fourteen years old and working for a summer camp west
of Fort Worth. The weeks were filled
with boys learning camping and outdoor skills that only a few would ever pursue
as an adult, but that most would find useful from time to time throughout their
lives. My job was to teach the proper
use of axes and knives—something I had used all my short life growing up on a
farm. Just like on the farm each work
day at the camp started at 4am and ended about 10pm, so I was glad when the
weekends arrived and I could have fun for a couple of days (a luxury we didn’t
have on the farm).
A few weekends into this, several of the staff members
decided to take a day hike to a lake a few miles away, and I joined them. We were traveling single file down a trail
when the guy behind me shouted, “David, Look Out! That snake is about to bite you!”
I seem to recall jumping straight up, turning around with a
summersault twist and landing about fifteen feet away.
“I’m sorry, David. I
meant to say ‘That snake just bit you’.”
The snake, a copperhead, was way out of place in this part
of Texas. Much too far west of where
its territory was believed to be, but there it was. One of the guys used a long stick and tossed it over the edge of
a ravine nearby while the others looked after me.
Out came the snakebite kits and rusty pocketknives. Basically they tied a couple of strings
around my leg as tourniquets, cut a hole in the calf of my right leg, applied
the suction cups from the kits, and tried to carry me back to camp about eight
miles away. After falling off the
stretcher made out of several shirts and some tree branches a couple of times,
I decided I’d rather walk.
The closest main highway was about five miles away, so I
started walking to it instead of the camp.
My leg was in pain. It wasn’t
the bite that hurt, it was the tourniquets and knife cuts that was causing the
discomfort. I fashioned a crutch from a
tree branch and kept walking until we reached the highway. There one of the guys flagged down a passing
pickup truck. When we explained to the
driver the situation, he drove us to the emergency room at the small hospital
in the town of Mineral Wells just a few miles away.
The doctor immediately came over
to examine me. He removed the
tourniquets, and the sudden rush of blood through the leg was
excruciating. I thought I was going to
die right there. I was already getting
sick from the poison in my system, but this felt like a good reason to say
goodbye to the world. He cleaned out
the hole in my leg and applied some kind of goop to it. He placed a clean bandage over it and left
the room while saying he needed to check something. The doctor returned after a few minutes and let me know there was
nothing more he could do for me.
Just a few minutes ago I had
wanted to die, but now I had changed my mind completely on the subject. I stared at the doctor with eyes as big as
baseballs, and my mouth open wide enough for a bird to nest in.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I just meant that you’ll be fine. The poison will make you very sick for a few
days, and it will have an effect on you for a few months, but you will live. Just change the bandage every few hours and
put this ointment on the wound until it closes up in a few weeks.”
