USU students learn to care for and prevent snake bite injuries

By Christopher Austin

Troops face a heightened risk of snake bites when deployed and USU students must be prepared to care for these injuries. Bruce Shwedick, of the Reptile Discovery Programs, presented an assortment of venomous and non-venomous snakes to faculty, students, and their families, and discussed how to prevent and care for snake bites.  

A cobra responds to Shwedicks movement
around the table (Image Credit: Tom Balfour)

For over thirty years, Shwedick, as part of the Snakes Alive! program, has been giving presentations on snakes – particularly venomous ones – as part of the Department of Preventative Medicine’s Tropical Medicine course. The Tropical Medicine course teaches service members how to manage disease in limited-resource settings, which includes managing snake bites.

“I was deployed in Afghanistan and saw kraits and cobras like the kind he showed, and we were aware of the saw-scaled viper,” said Army Maj. Richard Eide, a Masters of Public Health student who is taking the Tropical Medicine Course and was in the audience for the presentation. “We had a lot of concerns about those snakes.”

Presenting live specimens to the audience, Shwedick focused on what details help distinguish snake species from one another – even if snakes might be similar in appearance, the treatment for their bites can be very different.

Some rattlesnake species have learned not to use their rattle. Instead of warning people away, in recent years it has been attracting them. Like your friend Steve who "can totally handle this, guys, he's watched Animal Planet since he was seven." Okay Steve. (Image Credit: Tom Balfour)

With the development of DNA analysis technology, scientists have been able to distinguish 400 different species from similar looking snakes previously thought to be a part of an existing species. Even back when Shwedick was in school “it was known that if anti-venom was produced in India for the common cobra, it was completely ineffective against the venom of the common cobra in the Philippines. But they were still thought to be the same species of snake.”

Shwedick holds a milk snake in his hand while a rubber 
toy of its dangerous cousin, the coral snake lies on the 
table. (Photo by Tom Balfour)

For medical students, this information is critical: treatment for venomous snake bites is reliant on knowing which species of snake it is, and where the anti-venom is available. Knowing the species can

be tricky, especially considering that entirely different species can be differentiated only by tiny details like the shape of eyes or heads, or the number of rows of teeth a creature has.

“Red touches yellow, you’re a dead fellow. Red touches black, you’re okay Jack,” is the saying to help differentiate between the very similar poisonous coral snake and its non-poisonous relative, the milk snake. Both species share a red, black and yellow color scheme, but the pattern of these colors on the body is the best way to tell the difference between a venomous snake and a non-venomous one – at least without getting up close and personal.

“The most recommended tools for a venomous snake bite in North America, if you’re hiking in remote areas or out training: a cell phone and a sharpie. If you lose service in a remote area, keep a mental picture of the last place you had cell phone service,” Shwedick said. “Because if you’re bitten, you don’t want to wait on the chance that someone is going to come along, even though generally if someone is bitten by a venomous snake its best to keep them still and not have them move around. The venom travels through the lymphatic system, so the more movement, the greater spreading. But if you’re in a remote area, you need help and you need to walk and get back to where you have cell reception. If you’re bitten, use your sharpie to report the location of the bite and the time you were bitten. Take a photo of the snake.”

Shwedick wrapped up the session by inviting the audience to pet Banana Girl, an albino python (Image Credit: Kelsey Gilbert)

USU students, however, likely won’t have the luxury of a smart phone to save the day when deployed, which is why the Tropical Medicine course is an important part of the medicine curriculum. Students don’t know exactly where they’ll be stationed upon graduation and must be prepared for anything. The Snakes Alive presentation is just one more way USU is preparing students for a different kind of medical career.