A Tough Guy Gets Rattled : Familiarity With the Wild Is No Help as Serpent Bites Hand That Heeds Him

How does it feel to be bitten by a rattlesnake?

Painless, says Paul Mecke, but weird.

The Carpinteria electrician, struck by what was probably a common Western diamondback, recalls: “It was like the tingling sensation you get when your feet fall asleep and the blood starts to come back in, only three times more intense.

“(It) started at the top of my head and just moved down all through my body, like somebody plugged in an electrical outlet but had the voltage turned down. It went right on down to my toes. I just stood there and (thought), oh, this is really weird.

“When it got to my feet, it turned around and started coming back up the other way, only this time it was hitting the muscles. I was getting charley horses in the backs of my calves--just knotted right up. That was the painful thing. There was no pain from the bite at all.”

Mecke acknowledged that he was the victim of his own “stupid mistake.” Snakebites happen to people who don’t know any better, not to someone who knows the ways of the wild from chasing mountain lions through the Oakland Hills with a BB gun as a boy and spending the rest of his 55 years trekking the wilderness to decorate his apartment with a bearskin rug, the jaws of a mako shark and the skull of a bow-shot javelina.

Not to someone who “had a shark jump in my boat with me one time,” who drives a camouflage-painted four-wheel drive and is known around the neighborhood as “Crocodile Dundee.” Not to someone who wears snakeskin hatbands and belts, has a snake tattooed on the same arm that was bitten and has catfish, not tropicals, swimming in his aquarium.

The catfish--it was they that led him into trouble. In the twilight on May 30, Mecke drove up Toro Canyon Road above Carpinteria, parked and hiked down into a gully to look for polliwogs and frogs to feed the young catfish. Along the way he had picked up a transient--something he had never done--and took him along for the ride because “I just wanted somebody to talk to.”

That casual decision might have saved his life. Mecke revisited the site last weekend and pointed out where the transient, who didn’t want his name used, had waited in the truck only about 40 feet from where Mecke encountered the snake.

Looking down into the gully, Mecke said, “I was about to climb back up this hill and (the snake) was lying across that narrow (path) there.”

Common sense would dictate letting the snake be, but Mecke, wearing shorts and sandals, recognized that the only other routes up were through growths of poison oak.

So Mecke, who said he had handled snakes in similar situations “maybe 30 times before,” picked up a three-foot stick and lifted the snake off the path, planning to flip it aside. But in the fading light, he had underestimated the snake’s size. It was fat and heavy, and Mecke quickly realized he had more snake than stick.

“When I went to lift it up, the stick started to bend, like it was going to break, so rather than have it break and the snake fall down and hit me in the foot, I tried to elevate it a little to balance him. He just slid right down . . . came right down the stick right on me. He was there all of a sudden, biting as soon as he hit my arm.”

The snake struck Mecke in the web between his right thumb and forefinger, sinking its twin fangs deep. Mecke swung the snake against a tree, then against some rocks, but succeeded only in making the snake more angry.

“I’d say he was on me for a good 15 or 20 seconds, and he was pumping me all the time,” Mecke said. “That’s why I got so much venom. . . . Every time I pulled on him I could feel the jolt of something going into my hand, because my hand would swell each time, like putting an air hose in there. I just watched my hand go poof-poof each time, as he’d pulsate. Finally, I swung him around my head a couple times and he went a-flying.”

As the venom coursed through his body, Mecke yelled up to the transient.

“Goddamn it, I been snake-bit!”

“What kind of snake?”

“Well, what kind of snake is there? A rattlesnake!”

The transient ran and slid down the hill to Mecke’s side.

“I was just standing there stupefied . . . couldn’t even move after I got the thing off me. Everything just clamped down. My jaw almost cut my tongue off. This was all within three minutes.”

Rattlesnake venom is hemo-toxin, destroying tissue and breaking up blood cells.

“What do I do?” the transient implored. “What do I do?”

Mecke said, calmly, “Just get me to my car and let’s get to a hospital. Don’t worry, I’m not going to die on you.”

The transient dragged Mecke up the hill and into the truck and sped down the winding, two-lane road to town. Between episodes of unconsciousness, Mecke was lucid enough to know not to try the antiquated treatments of tourniquets and “cutting and sucking” that can do more harm than good. What he didn’t know was that Carpinteria has no hospital.

After some frantic driving, the transient found paramedics Steve Pinkerton and Mike Morrison of the Mobile Life Support, Medic 1 unit in town. They started Mecke on an IV and oxygen, which seemed to help, as they transported him to St. Francis Hospital in Santa Barbara, arriving about two hours after Mecke had been bitten.

“They thought I was on drugs when I came in, I was acting so strange, staggering and babbling and seeing weird colors,” Mecke said. “Then they saw how my hand was so swollen.”

The nurses also noticed the snake tattoo on his upper right arm.

“Are you in a snake cult or something?” they asked.

During the next two weeks, Mecke, 5 feet 10 and 180 pounds, lost 20 pounds, received 28 doses of antivenin--three or four times the normal treatment--and his lower arm was slit from palm to elbow to relieve pressure and prevent infection.

St. Francis is a Catholic facility. Mecke is not Catholic.

“They were putting holy water crosses on my head,” he said. “At that point I was ready to become anything.

“I had a start one night. I woke up about 2 in the morning with this priest bending over me. I couldn’t see his face . . . I opened one eye and thought, ‘Well, I guess either I’m going or I’m there.’ ”

Last weekend, Mecke’s arm was still swollen to twice normal size, yellowish fingers as stiff as wooden pegs protruding from a soft cast. This week the bandages came off, revealing “a little railroad track running along my arm.

“I have no feeling in these fingers,” he said. “They put me on painkillers just so I can do the therapy . . . so they can bend my fingers.”

Dr. Daniel Greenberg, who along with Dr. Mike Behrman treated Mecke at St. Francis, said, “I don’t think he was in great danger of losing his life. We worried more about the arm and hand. Most of the time we don’t open it up, but the pressure was too high.”

Greenberg thought Mecke should continue to heal “right back to normal,” perhaps in another month.

The transient might take longer to recover.

“He’s getting anxiety attacks from this,” Mecke said. “It traumatized him. He thought I was going to die.”

Mecke wants others to know about the danger and the consequences. He expects his medical bills to reach $70,000.

“About every five years you have a snake explosion. With all that rain we had, there’s a bumper crop of rodents and small game out there.”

And that food source builds a bumper crop of snakes.

But Kathy Nevins of the Los Angeles Zoo said: “Only 2% of the (snake)bites in this country are accidental. The rest we call illegitimate bites, because it’s people trying to catch them or somehow molest them.”

Mecke concedes membership in the 98% category.

“I should have known better,” he said. “I’m aware of what rattlesnakes are. I’ve photographed them. Had them crawl over my sleeping bag at night.”

He took one last look down into the gully.

“That snake’s probably still down there. I don’t think I killed him.”

Paul Mecke is researching snakebite incidents of the last five years. He asks victims to write him at P.O. Box 848, Carpinteria, Calif. 93014.

SNAKE TIPS

Before going hiking or camping:

--Know the territory. Are there snakes?

--If so, don’t go alone, and . . .

--Determine location of nearest medical facility before you go.

Source: Snakebite victim Paul Mecke, who learned the hard way.

When encountering a snake:

--Give it a wide berth.

--If you hear it but can’t see it, stand still until you locate it. It won’t attack unless provoked.

--Remember, baby rattlers are as venomous as adults.

--Dead rattlesnakes can be dangerous because of reflex action or venom residue.

Source: Wildlife Waystation.

If a snake bites you:

--If within an hour’s drive of medical assistance, go.

--If bitten on arm or leg, keep limb below heart level to minimize circulation of venom.

--Don’t attempt to cut the wound open and suck out the venom (although special venom extracting devices-- not suction cups--might help).

--Do not apply a tourniquet unless you are more than an hour from assistance--and then apply it loose enough to slip two fingers underneath, and loosen it as swelling increases.

--Do not apply ice.

--Stay as still as possible.

Source: Cheryl Carpenter, poison specialist, Arizona Poison and Drug Information Center.