For some reason all venoms from snakes, bees, wasps, etc break down quickly, generally just a few hours. (A biologist explained it to me once but it was complicated bio-chemistry and I forgot it instantly.)
So the story in herp circles is that back in the 70’s a guy got bit by a big rattler in TX, had trouble starting his truck and zapped himself accidentally right across the bite. It was an hour before he actually got to a hospital. At first they assumed it must have been a dry bite, but then somebody noticed the tissue response right by the punctures was consistent with a wet (presumably lethal) bite. So they started trying to figure out WTF happened.
In lab testing they discovered that high-voltage accelerates the breakdown process to almost instantaneous. The rest, as they say, is history.
I learned about the watchful waiting from my AC guy who’d gotten a bite cleaning brush. His bite wasn’t dry, and he didn’t get antivenin, and said it hurt a lot. But maybe he was yanking my chain. His arm looked pretty gnarly tho.
Glad to hear that they do the warning/dry bite because I’ve almost stepped on one twice. They’re all but invisible in the leaf litter.
Abendazole, marketed as Albenza, is available as a standard anti-parasite medication which costs $150 a pill for people, or as Valbazen, a cattle dewormer, is $40 for a half liter jug.
The dewormer is available OTC by the way just in case anybody has any parasite issues.
There are coral snakes in Asia too- the Malayan blue coral snake is notorious for having the longest venom glands of any snake, at 25% of its body length.
Good info, though near as I can tell in every case they’re “doing it wrong”. (Spark-plug burns to the lip guy was particularly amusing.) To the best of my knowledge 10k-12k volts across the site of the bite, administered as quickly as possible, is the key. Higher voltages don’t do any more to help and can certainly cause burns, and time is of the essence as you’re trying to catch as much of it at the wound site as possible. (And no, ha ha, I’m planning to test it on myself any time soon!)
For perspective, I should add that this same guy once descended to 80+ meters on regular air. That’s pure foolhardiness as there is little to no advance warning about oxygen toxicity at high partial pressures. (I’ve been to 55m on air but that is relatively safe from an oxygen toxicity POV. It was part of a planned deep dive with twin tanks, a buddy, and deco bar hanging under the boat. Worth noting that even at that depth though the effects of nitrogen narcosis were like having had 6 beers.)
