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robbo mcs · Mar 9th, 2005, 01:55 AM

Hi,

All these snake stories

I may as tell my scariest one

Flashback to 1991. I am working as a junior doctor in casualty at Nepean Hospital, when a guy came in with a snake bite. Most bites are innocuous, but by the time this guy came in he allready had double vision, and was slurring his speech, which was a sign that he had envenomation, not just a bite.

He soon became extremely ill

The snake toxin basically disabled his bodies ability to clot blood. This is one of the ways that they can kill. Pretty soon this guy was virtually bleeding to death. He developed untrolled bleeding everywhere, from every bodily orifice

He was even bleeding from his tear ducts

The treatment is to give antivenom and a type of blood transfusion. There is no set dose, you just keep giving it until it works.

We soon used up all of our stock of venom and blood products in the entire hospital. We then used all of our "out of date" antivenom, but the poor guy was getting more and more critical, and was no unconcsious in ICU. We ended up having to get antivenom from 4 other hospitals in Sydney until we had nearly exhausted their stock as well.

Eventually after around 24 hours the guy started to stabilise, and eventually made a full recovery

However, the episode stuck in my mind, and I allways treat snakes with respect

Cheers

Robbo

PS : lucky the guy was in NSW where we have fantastic doctors and nurses

God knows what would have happened if he was in Victoria

Mar 9th, 2005, 01:55 AM	#82
robbo mcs Track Addict Join Date: Mar 2003 Location: Sydney Local Time: 01:25 AM Posts: 2,620 Offline	Hi, All these snake stories I may as tell my scariest one Flashback to 1991. I am working as a junior doctor in casualty at Nepean Hospital, when a guy came in with a snake bite. Most bites are innocuous, but by the time this guy came in he allready had double vision, and was slurring his speech, which was a sign that he had envenomation, not just a bite. He soon became extremely ill The snake toxin basically disabled his bodies ability to clot blood. This is one of the ways that they can kill. Pretty soon this guy was virtually bleeding to death. He developed untrolled bleeding everywhere, from every bodily orifice He was even bleeding from his tear ducts The treatment is to give antivenom and a type of blood transfusion. There is no set dose, you just keep giving it until it works. We soon used up all of our stock of venom and blood products in the entire hospital. We then used all of our "out of date" antivenom, but the poor guy was getting more and more critical, and was no unconcsious in ICU. We ended up having to get antivenom from 4 other hospitals in Sydney until we had nearly exhausted their stock as well. Eventually after around 24 hours the guy started to stabilise, and eventually made a full recovery However, the episode stuck in my mind, and I allways treat snakes with respect Cheers Robbo PS : lucky the guy was in NSW where we have fantastic doctors and nurses God knows what would have happened if he was in Victoria Mods: GO MADDIE and SPARKY!