TUCSON CITIZEN (Arizona) 29 August 08 Rattler nearly costs woman her leg - Bitin' season (Ryn Gargulinski)
Something even scarier than Election Day is writhing in the distance.
Tucson's rattlesnake season is in full gear.
Technically, rattlesnake season is every season in Tucson - one snake handler said for every one snake you see, there are 12 you don't see - but numbers are especially high in late summer.
"Through August and September, we expect to get more than one bite per day," said Jude McNally, managing director of the Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center.
From Aug. 1 through Aug. 26, there were 28 bite reports. Year to date has seen 112.
August and September of 2007 had 43 bites each month. Compare that with 2007's January and February single bite per month.
Late summer bites hard because it's breeding season. Hundreds of itty bitty snakelets come wriggling out of thousands of itty bitty shell shards to bite you on the ankle.
In my nearly two years in Tucson, I've only seen 1 1/2 rattlesnakes. The half was a pulverized snake near the rock that apparently had been used to pulverize it. The rock had snake pulp on it.
Recent signs posted near the Rillito warn you to watch for venomous critters.
"Critter" is such a cutesy word for a thing that can kill you.
Five people have died in Arizona in the past five years from snakebites, McNally said, and more than 1,200 have been bitten.
The handler would say that means some 14,400 snakes are out there, waiting.
Kate Fox was one of the bitten. She did not die, though she said it felt as if she might as well have.
An artist and designer, Fox, 62, often follows her own drummer and thus was not bitten in prime time. A rattler got her in June.
Her leg turned black and swelled to twice its size. Doctors wanted to chop it off. She would not let them.
Fox couldn't walk for days, couldn't work for weeks and couldn't drive comfortably for months.
She's still reeling from some of the effects of the bite three years ago.
Since the snake clamped like a vise around the back of her Achilles tendon near the ankle, Fox's bones have become arthritic.
She suffers random, extreme hot flashes and she had a really bad nightmare about a giant mouth descending to devour her.
"Some days, I just ache," she said. McNally and several colleagues did a study that showed 25 percent of bite victims suffer long-term or permanent damage.
If that's not enough, Fox is still shaken from the medical bill. It was $52,000.
"It's legendary how much it costs to treat a snakebite," McNally said.
More than half of the bites are known as "illegitimate" because they are wholly preventable, he said.
Bites on the arms, usually to younger to middle-aged men who insist upon playing with, touching or picking up a rattlesnake, fall into this category. Very often the dudes are drunk.
"Alcohol and snakes are a bad combination," McNally said.
Another big chunk of bites, pun intended, are to folks older than 60 who were gardening without their glasses on.
Or older guys who insist upon playing with, touching or picking up a rattlesnake.
"Men will be men," he said. "Guys even in their 80s find it a good idea to go over to a rattlesnake and pick it up."
Fox had been walking her neighbor's dog in the foothills when she was bitten.
She never saw the snake, but briefly heard its warning rattle.
"I just thought, 'Damn, that hurts,' " she said when the thing clamped around her tendon.
She does not resent the neighbor, the neighbor's dog or even the snake.
In fact, she's become more curious about rattlesnakes.
Still, she moved the heck out of the foothills to a central part of town.
And she did find at least one beauteous thing as a result of her experience.
At a wedding, she found herself surrounded by handsome men hanging on every word of her snakebite story.
"If I would have known that would happen, I would have got bitten years sooner," she joked.
Maybe some of the guys were taking notes on the best way to play with, touch or pick up a rattlesnake.
Rattler nearly costs woman her leg