ORLANDO SENTINEL (Florida) 09 November 06 Harmony football player not rattled by a little snakebite (David Whitley)
St. Cloud: Nick Beatty didn't panic when his arm began to inflate. He just stared as the veins popped out and turned yellow.
It was only when the doctor told him they might have to cut the whole thing off that Beatty reacted.
"Wow," he said.
There wasn't a "No, Doc!" or "Why did I pick up that freakin' rattler?" That wouldn't have been Beatty's style.
"He's kind of a crazy kid," Harmony Coach Tyler Anderson said.
And somewhere in his crazy comeback story, there are lessons for all ages. Like when life bites you, carry on.
Beatty did, and so did his team. After going 0-9 in its inaugural season two years ago, it will play in its first bowl game Saturday night.
Beatty will be at linebacker, complete with both arms. He even has the feeling back in his right one, except for the index finger.
"It still feels weird," he said.
Beatty was on a church excursion in June and came upon a two-foot long pygmy rattlesnake. If you're like most people, size doesn't matter when it comes to snakes.
"You know how boys are," said his mother, Sandy. "I swear, I could kill this kid. I can't wait till he grows up."
This is a kid who needed 150 stitches in his legs after the upside-down aquarium he was standing on caved in. He broke a knuckle in a fight. He broke his hand playing football.
His hobbies are hunting wild hogs and collecting snakeskins. Ask him whether he'd ever been bitten, and you get a response worthy of the Crocodile Hunter, may he rest in peace.
"Never by a poisonous one," Beatty said.
There's a first time for everything. Beatty tried to squeeze the venom out of his finger, but it was too late. He was smiling when he got to the hospital; then all those weird things started.
Everything below his right shoulder ballooned. His blood pressure dropped. They pumped in eight vials of antivenin to stop the spiral.
Beatty spent three days in the intensive-care unit. Doctors told his mother they might have to amputate his finger, then his hand, then his arm.
"They say you have a better chance of winning the lottery than getting bitten by a venomous snake," Sandy said.
They never met Nick Beatty, of course. The antivenin finally kicked in before the renal failure did.
Once his life was out of danger, it was just a matter of waiting to see how the tissue around the wound would recover.
"It was nasty," Sandy said. "It was black and like death."
Beatty's finger stayed that way for a few weeks, but it didn't spread to his hand. His weight dropped from 187 to 165 pounds, which didn't exactly set him up for his senior season.
He pretty much played one-handed at first, which certainly beats no-handed. If he were a quarterback or concert pianist, he'd have been in trouble. As a linebacker, he could still throw his body around and damage offenses.
When he returned a fumble 72 yards for a touchdown against St. Cloud a couple of weeks ago, the whole ordeal hit his mother.
"I was crying," she said. "Here was a kid who thought his football career might be over, or he was going to lose his hand."
He stuck it where it didn't belong. But at least Beatty didn't blame others for his mistake or play the victim (see: Pete Rose, Terrell Owens, any athlete who fails a drug test). Now there's only one more game in his football career.
"I'm going to miss it," Beatty said.
Hopefully he'll find another outlet. One that doesn't involve snakes.
At least not poisonous ones.
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