Schlangenbiss

[Habichtskauz Profil Website]

Ganz nett finde ich diese Broschüre (www.karch.ch):
Schlangen - Was tun?

[Gerald]

Jupp, wirklich interessant.

Hat eingentlich eine Adrenalingabe ohne dass man jetzt z.B. von irgenwas gebissen oder gestochen worden ist irgendwelche (negativen) Auswirkungen?

[Habichtskauz Profil Website]

40 Menschen nach Schlangenbiss im Spital (ORF)

Interessant auch die Aussage: "Die giftigsten heimischen Schlangenarten sind Sandviper, Kreuzotter und Wiesenotter."

Wanderer von Kreuzotter gebissen (ORF)
...vielleicht könnt ihr das als "Fund" registrieren

[Gast Profil]

Liebe Leute,
was bisher nicht erwähnt wurde: wenn jemand allergisch auf das Schlangengift reagiert, kann er bereits durch eine geringe Giftmenge in einen lebensbedrohlichen Zustand gelangen; wenn jemand dadurch einen anaphylaktischen Schock erleidet, ist die Gabe von Cortison, im Extremfall eine rasche Intubation durch einen zu Hilfe gerufenen Arzt, das Mittel der Wahl, damit der Patient nicht erstickt. Ein "Antiserum" wäre auf jeden Fall kontraproduktiv. Der Einsatz eines Rettungshubschraubers ist dann anzuraten.
Bestimmt mehr als 90% der von Kreuzottern gebissenen Personen benötigen keine weitere Behandlung als Ruhigstellung und Abwarten des Abklingens der Symptome.
Übrigens soll die Unterart Vipera berus bosniensis über ein wesentlich stärkeres Gift, dazu noch in anderer Zusammensetzung, verfügen als die heimische Unterart.

[Gerald]

Hoi Siggi,

ich denke mir, dass auch EpiPen (oder ähnliche Adrenalin Präp.) ein Mittel der ersten Wahl sein wird; wird z.B. bei allergischer Überreaktion auf Bienenstiche dgl. verabreicht.

[Berus Profil]

I wouldn't underestimate European "pocket-vipers", especially Vipera ammodytes.
The consequences of a particular bite depend on so many factors already mentioned
in the above discussion. Anything goes, just don't get bitten on your head!

For those who can stand it, here are some photos of a sheep that was bitten by
a V. ammodytes on its head, either in the close vicinity of the eye or maybe even
directly on it.

[img]upload/2516182682005.jpg[/img]

One eye had trickled out of the socket, the other one we could not find due to the swelling...


[img]upload/1521182682005.jpg[/img]


[img]upload/3322182682005.jpg[/img]


The sheep had probably been bitten in the morning and we found it in the late afternoon
- too late for anything. It died half an hour later, probably of suffocation.

So, I think it's more merciful to be bitten by a black mamba to any part of the body
than by a Vipera ammodytes to one's head...

[Muralis Profil]

Puhhh - echt eindrucksvolle Bilder

Dabei fällt mir eine Frage ein, die mir eigentlich schon lange brennt (vielleicht hab ich´s hier schon überlesen):

Was mache ich wirklich, wenn mich als Wald- und ehemaligen Gebirgsläufer in unwegsamem Gebiet über der Baumgrenze eine Otter beißt?

Zum Beispiel in dem Habitat, wo ich letztens die Höllenotter knipste. Ruhigstellen und dort oben sitzenbleiben? Oder laufen und stolpern und schauen, wie weit ich komme? :confused:

[Gerald]

Das ist jetzt das was ich mir Denke:

Solange es eine Kreuzotter ist und keine großen Gefäße getroffen worden sind wird es (ausser den Schmerzen, Übelkeit usw.) keine Schwerstverletzung darstellen, sprich im normalen Tempo abwärts.

@ Mario bzw. Mamba - Erbitte darum mich auszubessern

[Berus Profil]

> Ruhigstellen und dort oben sitzenbleiben?
> Oder laufen und stolpern und schauen, wie weit ich komme?


I can understand you very well, since when I am in an ammodytes-rich landscape, I am almost always alone and HOURS of walking from any village and/or road, e. g. here:


[img]upload/2217192782005.jpg[/img]

(This is Konrad Mebert in the picture, not me, but the terrain is "mine".)


In a case like that, I would first make two phonecalls from my cellular phone - to a local shepherd who is capable of FINDING me in the landscape and to the ambulance service, to get them as near as possible. Then I would walk, as far as it goes... There's no point in sitting and waiting if you can not reach medical help within an hour or so.

Once I posed the same question to a physician, when we were together deep in the mountains, at least half a day of walking from any "civilization", in the times when there were no cellular phones. What would she do with me in case of a snake bite, without any medical equipment? (She did not have any.) Well, she said she would open the wound and then make me run around like mad, till I drop to the ground, in hope that I would both sweat out and bleed out as much poison as possible... "And that's about it?", I asked. "What else could I do?", was the answer.
Well, if any person with medical qualifications happen to read this, I would like him/her to comment.

[Franz Profil Website]

Dear Berislav,
I think this physician has never been bitten by a snake before. I'm not a physician but I don't believe that her experiance with snakes was a great one...
Perhaps I would try to widen the wound to get swept out most of the venom. Afterwards I would walk slowly step by step without to avoid rising blood pressure.

[Berus Profil]

Thanks, Franz,
but I still think that a physician need not have personal experiences with any kind of trauma, including bites from venomous snakes, in order to treat them medically in a proper way. Knowledge would suffice, if there is any, of course. (Often there is not, unfortunately.)

> Afterwards I would walk slowly step by step without to avoid rising blood pressure.

What did you intend to say, "without rising blood pressure" or "to avoid rising blood pressure"? "Without to avoid" is a little bit too complicated for me...
Anyhow, if you are suggesting that one should take care not to heighten one's blood pressure, I don't see why. According to literature, one of the causes of death from bites from haemotoxic species is low blood pressure, not a too high one...

[Franz Profil Website]

Sorry Berislav, of course I meant to avoid a higher blood pressure. I think that a higher blood pressure will lead to a quicker distribution of the venom in the hole body. Because the most bites are on hands or feets I would also try to bind the bitten extremity.

[Rock Profil]

Was ich sehr interessant finde ist z.B. die Erkenntnis, dass manche Säugetiere, seien sie auch noch so klein, weit besser mit gewissen Giftarten auskommen, als der Mensch.

Gestern hab ich eine kurze Doku über die Trichternetzspinne in Australien gesehen. Für den Menschen, Primaten und Insekten ist das Toxin absolut lebensbedrohlich - Katzen, Hunde und andere Säugetiere sind nicht betroffen davon und haben abseits der Schmerzen keine anderen Symptome zu befürchten.
Erklärt wurde dies durch das Neurotoxin der Spinne, das sich nur auf die Nervensysteme der erwähnten Lebewese (inkl. Mensch) auswirken.

Gibt es Ähnliches auch bei Giftschlangen ?

Edit:
was mich noch interessieren würde:
sind z.B. Jeans stark genug, um einen Biß einer Vipera Berus zu vereiteln? Wie stark ist der Biß überhaupt, welche Materialien kann es durchdringen? (angenommen, es handelt sich um eine adulte Viper berus).
Nur so am Rande:
die Trichternetzspinne soll so starke Giftzähne haben, dass sie das Genick einer Maus spielend brechen
Da bin ich ja, als Universalphobiker, froh, dass in unseren Breiten nur freundlichere Gesellen unterwegs sind

[Berus Profil]

Many animals, including snails and hares (mammals!), eat the mushroom Amanita phalloides without any problems, while for us it is the deadliest mushroom of all. So it's simply idiotic to follow the logic that a mushroom that has been partly eaten by an (unknown!) animal should be harmless for us as well. And some people do reason like that (I've heard it myself), sometimes with fatal consequences...
(The other idiotic thing to do is to give a mushroom dish to a pet like a cat or dog, wait for half an hour, and if nothing happens, eat the dish oneself. With Amanita phalloides the first symptoms of poisoning can be expected to show up after 8 hours or more... And with Dermocybe orellana after a week or so...)

Particular poisons and venoms have been developed (evolutionally, of course) for particular purposes, i. e. targets. If they are dangerous to somebody else as well, that is pure coincidence (or bad luck, from the point of the victim.) Biochemistry of an organism is a terribly complicated thing and it's very difficult to foresee what a cocktail of organic compounds, called poison or venom, would or could do in a "wrong" organism, for which it has not been "naturally assigned".

The same holds for antivenoms, of course. Indian mongoose has developed a certain degree of immunity to neurotoxic venom of cobras, but not to haemotoxic venoms of European vipers. That's why they did not fare well when they had been introduced to some Adriatic islands (Hvar, Korcula), in order to get them rid of Vipera ammodytes... (It was a very bad idea, for more reasons than this particular one, and nowadays no ecologist in his right mind would either attempt or allow anything like that.)

[Berus Profil]

Rock,
I'm no expert on spiders, but I assume they had better have strong jaws, as they have to subdue armoured creatures, sometimes much bigger than themselves and quite heavily armoured. Just look at these pictures:


[img]upload/114143082005.jpg[/img]


[img]upload/584143082005.jpg[/img]


This spider was not dealing with a dead insect, on the contrary, it was slaughtering a very lively one, which made 30-centimeter jumps from time to time (making it hard for me to take closeup photos.) And, by the way, as regards "dass in unseren Breiten nur freundlichere Gesellen unterwegs sind", these photos were not taken in South America...