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I found a juvenile king on the road tonight, he had been run over on the last 3/4 of his body. He had what appears to be a kidney and some intestenes protruding from a wound in his side. There are no vets in my area that will see reptiles, let alone on an emergency basis.With the help of my girlfriend we have very carefuly reinserted his organs and made a small butterfly bandage to close the wound. He has gotten pretty lethargic but he did drink some water when i put his head in front of some. Is there anything else I can do for him? There are no vets in my area that will see reptiles, let alone on an emergency basis. HELP!

Even if you managed to put his organs back in where they were supposed to be AND they were undamaged, the resulting peritonitis is likely to lead to a slow miserable death.

While trying to save the animal is valiant, sometimes euthenasia is the kinder route.
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Chris Harrison

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Martin Whalin
My Email

Quotes from guys named Carl:

"Science stops at the frontier of logic. Nature does not, she thrives on ground as yet untrodden by theory."
-Carl Jung

"It is foolish to let singleness of purpose deprive one of the joy and delectation of the many wonderful sights and sounds incidental to the quest."
-Carl Kauffeld

Driving from my girlfriends house on the way to a snake place we drove right by a big 3 1/2' garter snake. It was stuck to the road and the last half was skinned and he was doing just ugly. Theres no hope, so I pulled over and put him down. After speaking with him, seeing his pain, I stomped his head a good 8 times till it was flat as a pancake. It had to be done, his pain is over. Makes me sad, but it's for the best.

Ummm... stomping sounds a bit brutal to me. I suggest taking a small army knife or something of that sort with you, and in that sad instance where a snake is suffering, use the knife to cut the head off. Doing that would be much less painful that stomping its head in. Being ran over is painful enough, and cutting off the head would be an instantaneous method to relieve the snake of the pain. Just my opinion.

--Laura

I didn't think of that, haven't had a knife for a long time. Now I have a cheap "Swiss army" knife I got for free at work. Don't know if it would cut though. Sounds and looks brutal, but it had to be done. After the first 2 he was dead, the rest were to make sure.

It's pretty much a case by case thing.

I healed a banded water snake with similar injuries when I first started with snakes. Not knowing any better, I pushed his guts back in and (after dabbing the area with ST37 (a mouthwash that has amazing effectivenes on wounds)I used duct tape to keeep the injury closed. Eventually he healed and shed off the piece of tape.

I knew a 7'yellow rat that had been (most likely) run over by a car and for years this one eyed hamburger skulled snake would periodically show up at Lion Country trying to get into our screened ratsnake display cage.

Another rescue was a 7' Burmese that I found by a canal with its body chopped more than half way thru (with Probably" a machette). I took it home and found the spine was half destroyed. I cleaned the wound and put Triple anti B on it. The Burm made a complete recovery (not even a scar visable today).

It's not the easiest thing to try and heal a snake that is partially crushed. Personally, if it was still able to move it's tail I would clean and medicate. If there was no improvementin a week or so, then I would euthanise.

Frank
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"The luxury of not getting involved departed with the last lifeboat Skipper..."

A couple of years ago when we still lived down in South GA my daughter accidentally ran over a good sized copperhead with the lawn mower. The snake was split pretty badly on the head (down to the bone and through even), had a few cuts and scrapes down his trunk and about 2-3" below the vent his tail was almost shorn clean off.
He was such a beautiful animal and still very much alive, so I looked to my medical bg and actully sutured the head wound up (he ended up losing use of the eye on that side I think) and cleaned and sanitized the rest of his wounds with betadine (povidone iodine surgical scrub). He ate almost immediately after the makeshift 'surgery' and shed nicely about 2 weeks later, so I kept him in a cage on my back porch for about 5 more weeks until I was convinced he would be ok back out in the wild.
He did end up losing the end of his tail, and his body wounds healed up beautifully but he had one hell of a nasty looking scar on his head, lol. Made him look all the meaner, even though he had a surprisingly nice attitude for a WC hot animal.
I most likely would have ended up keeping him as I grew quite attached but we got the word we were moving back up to NY state shortly there after so I relesed him into his woods behind the house
~Roo
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"Klaatu...Verata...Nicht--cough, cough, cough!"

Well he didn't make it through the night. At least he did not suffer for to long. I wish there was more I could have done for him

Sorry to hear that, sounds like you did all you could for him. He was probably suffering from some pretty nasty internal injuries as well as the ones you observed on the outside.
Don't beat yourself up, you did a good thing by trying to save him
It's a shame but things like this happen all the time, probably much much more than anyone knows as natural predators tend to clean the roads up quickly this time of year.
Take care.
~Roo
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"Klaatu...Verata...Nicht--cough, cough, cough!"