Helpful precautions
In snake country, it is important to take a flashlight along whenever there is occasion to go outside at night in summer to be sure that there are no rattlesnakes lying across your path. If you sleep out of doors. keep your bed off the ground if possible. The widely believed statement that, “a rattlesnake will not crawl across a hair rope” is not true, although such a statement will often precipitate an argument.
Persons much in the field should provide themselves with a suction-type snakebite kit, and should know how to use it. Although you stand 200 chances of being killed by an automobile to one of dying from snakebite, the price of a suction-type kit is cheap insurance against that possibility.
First aid for rattlesnake bite
If, in spite of all precautions, you or some companion should be bitten by a rattlesnake, first-aid should be rendered at once. This is not difficult if you have a snakebite kit, and it is possible even if you do not.
The following steps are quite universally accepted:
1. Apply a tourniquet a short distance above the bite (that is between it and the heart) but do not make it too tight. This prevents the blood and lymph carrying the poison from being spread rapidly through the body. The tourniquet should be loosened for a few seconds every 20 minutes.
2. Make a short cut about one-fourth inch deep and one-fourth inch long near each fang puncture with a sharp, sterile instrument. A knife or razor blade sterilized in the flame of a match will do.
3. Apply suction to the cuts. If no suction cup is available, the mouth will do if it contains no open sores.
4. If antivenin is available, administer it according to instructions, but, if possible, this should be left to a physician. (Recent experiments with antivenin indicate that, in some cases, its reaction may be harmful and that it should be administered only under the care of a physician.)