Fear of snakebite outstrips actual danger, expert says
by John McCoy, Staff writer
JOHN McCOY | Gazette photos
With thick, muscular bodies that average 3 to 4 feet in length, timber rattlesnakes are capable of injecting a sizable venom load into unfortunate or careless West Virginians.
Because of their relatively small size and mild venom, Copperheads are the less dangerous of the Mountain State’s two venomous snake species.
Snakes bite most during the dog days of summer, right?
Maybe, said Jim Fregonara, one of West Virginia’s top snake experts, but it’s more a coincidence than anything else.
“In West Virginia, snakes are only out and about for about half a year, from March or April through October or so,” Fregonara explained. “Summer is when people are out doing work, and snakes are doing their work too. With people and snakes really active at the same time, their paths are more likely to cross.”
That doesn’t mean, however, that Mountain State residents should fret about being bitten. West Virginia has but two species of venomous snakes, and while they’re widely distributed across the landscape, the woods aren’t exactly crawling with them.
“A lot of people think we have three venomous species, but really we have only two,” Fregonara said. “We have the timber rattlesnake and the northern copperhead. Contrary to some folks’ opinion, we don’t have water moccasins. We do have lots of northern water snakes, which people often mistake for moccasins, but water snakes are non-venomous.”
He said the confusion about water snakes probably stems from their aggressive nature.
“They have a mean reputation. They’ll bite you more than once, but they don’t have any venom to inject,” he added.
Timber rattlers and copperheads? That’s another matter. They can and will inject venom. Fregonara said, however, that West Virginians’ fear of venomous snakes far outstrips the actual level of danger.
“Rattlesnake and copperhead venom is relatively mild when compared to that of the 10 most deadly species — all of which, by the way, are found in Asia, Australia or Africa,” he explained.
Fregonara said it has been more than 50 years since anyone in West Virginia died from a copperhead bite. “Not only is copperhead venom relatively mild, the snakes don’t usually inject much of it when they do bite,” he added. “In fact, I’ve read that they bite ‘dry’ about 40 percent of the time.”
Copperhead venom is so mild that doctors usually don’t administer antivenin to bite victims.
“They usually just treat the swelling and the other symptoms independently,” he said. “I had a doctor come up to me after one of my snake presentations, and he told me that he once gave antivenin to a boy who had been bitten by a copperhead, and the antivenin almost killed the kid.”
Northern copperheads are relatively small snakes. Adults average 24 to 36 inches in length. They can be found about anywhere in the Mountain State, but they’re most commonly encountered near woodpiles and rocky areas.
Of West Virginia’s two venomous species, timber rattlers are the more dangerous.
Because they are considerably larger than copperheads, timber rattlers tend to carry more venom and tend to inject it more deeply. Adult rattlers average 39 to 45 inches in length and can have bodies as thick as a man’s forearm.
West Virginians have died from rattler bites, but Fregonara said it’s been many years since anyone died of what he calls a “wild” bite. “The people who have died have been members of snake-handling churches, and they died because they refused medical treatment,” he explained.
Like copperheads, rattlers sometimes bite dry, a tendency Fregonara is thankful for.
“I did something stupid when I was feeding my timber rattler and I ended up getting bitten,” he says. “I opened the snake’s cage and tossed the mouse in. The snake struck there’s no good reason to apply a tourniquet,” Fregonara said. “The very first thing the people in the emergency room are going to do is to cut it off. There’s a far greater danger of blood-vessel and tissue damage from the tourniquet than there is from the snake venom.to catch the mouse but ended up hitting one of my fingers. It didn’t hurt at all, so I didn’t think anything of it. But then I looked and saw the two little holes where the fangs had penetrated and said, ‘Uh-oh.’ Fortunately, it turned out to be a dry bite.”
Victims injected with rattler venom are usually treated with antivenin. Depending upon the severity and location of the bite, treatment can require several vials of serum. Treatment is expensive, but untreated bites can cause continued pain, lasting tissue damage, hemorrhaging, respiratory distress and, in extreme cases, death.
Some West Virginians subscribe to the idea that when someone is bitten, the snake should be killed and taken to the emergency room so that doctors can identify it. Fregonara said not to bother. “Most doctors have never had classes in snake identification, so what’s the point?” he asked.
Snakebite victims also shouldn’t try many of the first-aid treatments they might have seen in the movies.
“For example, there’s no good reason to apply a tourniquet,” Fregonara said. “The very first thing the people in the emergency room are going to do is to cut it off. There’s a far greater danger of blood-vessel and tissue damage from the tourniquet than there is from the snake venom.
“Also, it’s a bad idea to put ice on the bite site. And it’s a really, really bad idea to cut the fang marks open and try to suck the venom out. All you’re doing there is causing even more soft-tissue damage than the bite ordinarily would, and you run the risk of severing a nerve, an artery or a vein.”
The best idea, he said, is to get to an emergency room as quickly as possible and let doctors administer the proper treatment.
Identifying the Mountain State’s venomous snakes isn’t always easy. Copperheads can usually be distinguished from non-venomous water snakes and corn snakes by their heads, which are roughly triangular or arrowhead-shaped; or by the pupils of their eyes, which look like slits.
“That’s a dead giveaway for a venomous snake,” Fregonara said. “Their eyes look like a cat’s, with a vertical pupil. Non-venomous snakes have round pupils. Another way to tell copperheads from other species is that copperheads’ heads are a uniform coppery color on top, while other species’ heads will have patterns on them.”
If rattlesnakes rattle, they’re easy to identify. They don’t always rattle when agitated, though, so it’s a good idea to know what they look like. Their heads, like those of the copperhead, are triangular. Their eyes have vertical pupils, too.
Apart from that, their markings can differ quite a bit from specimen to specimen. They often have black bands alternated with contrasting shades that vary from cream-colored to dark brown. The rear halves of their bodies tend to be black and, of course, are tipped by the specialized scales that rattle when the snakes vibrate their tails.
Fregonara said the best thing people can do when they encounter a rattler or a copperhead is simply to leave the creature alone.
“Even if they’re coiled up, they can only strike about half their body lengths, so it’s easy to stay out of their range,” he added. “They can’t spit their venom, and they aren’t going to hypnotize you by staring at you.“Usually when people do get bitten they’re trying to do something they shouldn’t be doing — trying to kill the snake, step on it, grab it or throw rocks on it. Truth be told, a lot of bites tend to occur when young men do stupid things under the influence of alcohol.”
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