With Summer Comes Snake Bites

Most common in southern climes, with young men most likely victims, experts say

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, June 6 (HealthDay News) -- With summer comes sunny weather, barbeques, swimming and . . . snake bites.

It's no secret that these reptiles, like some humans, hibernate in colder weather and emerge when it's warm. Every state in the union has poisonous snakes, except Maine, Hawaii and Alaska, said Dr. Garry Gore, an assistant professor of humanities in medicine with the Texas A&M Health Science Center College of Medicine and an emergency medicine physician at College Station Medical Center. That means you can get a bite almost anywhere in the country, although the preponderance of incidents tend to happen in the southern climes.

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The good news is a little venom won't necessarily hurt you, at least not fatally; there are usually only eight to 10 deaths a year from poisonous snakes, Gore said.

And snake bites tend to be clustered in a certain demographic, namely young men who have been drinking too much, according to Dr. Jeffrey Bernstein, medical director of the Florida Poison Information Center at the University of Miami/Jackson Memorial Hospital.

The other vulnerable group includes people handling snakes at the rattlesnake round-ups that are popular in the Southwest, Gore added.

Most snake bites will come from pit vipers like rattlesnakes. Why? There are just a whole lot more of them, Gore said.

Most of the remaining injuries come from coral snakes. The good news here: Coral snakes have to hang on for a while to really do any damage. "They have real small teeth, and they have to hold on while the venom drips out of their hollow little fangs," Gore said. "Most of the time, you can just shake them off or pull them off." Bites, then, are usually mild, with some local pain, numbness and swelling.

But these little snakes, who lash out successfully in the United States some 60 to 80 times a year, do emit a nasty neurologic toxin that can affect the nervous system and respiratory muscles. And the bad news is, there is currently no coral snake anti-venom approved in the United States.

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