Letter to the Editor Acknowledging Quick Response by Cullasaja Fire Department and Macon County EMS

I want to thank and acknowledge the Cullasaja Fire Department's prompt and professional assistance when I was bitten by a copperhead Thursday morning. I've always been concerned about a response in the event of an emergency, as we are somewhat remote. First responders were on site in five minutes; EMS a few minutes later. Everyone was amazing. Thank you for everything.

So people are asking for "the story." If you're interested, here goes:

Bill and I had been gone from home almost two weeks and had returned in time to do laundry, pay bills, and get ready for company to arrive on Friday. We had already canceled on these friends—twice!—and I was bound and determined not to let anything interfere with our plans this time.

My to-do list Thursday was a mile long. I was home alone and had almost completed item #1: watering my dying outdoor plants; it obviously had not rained the entire time we were in Alaska. I was barefoot (I know, I’m an idiot), and as I walked down my mulched path to water the last ten feet of my garden, I noted a weed in front of a small hosta. Watering with my right hand, I reached down with my left to pull the weed.

As I did, an adult copperhead (2-3’ long—I couldn’t tell because he was coiled under the plant) struck my left middle finger. Obviously threatened, he struck from a foot or so away.

Having a history of anaphylaxis from simple insect bites, I knew that response time was of the essence. Within 60 seconds, I was in the house and calling 911. We live at the top of a mountain in a very small town, and I’ve always been concerned about response times in case of emergency. I’m thankful that within five minutes, first responders had arrived, and the 911 operator stayed on the phone with me until they did.

Five minutes later, there were I-don’t-know-how-many ambulances/fire trucks/emergency vehicles in our driveway. I want to encourage my Franklin neighbors to have confidence in our local emergency services! I was rushed to Angel Hospital in Franklin, where I received outstanding care for a few hours. As my finger, my hand, and my arm began to swell, ED nurses began marking my hand and arm, noting increasing circumferences at different points every half-hour or so.

It was interesting: I could feel the venom travel from my fingertip (fortunately, only one fang had hit me, about 1/4 inch below my first joint), down my finger to my hand, then my wrist, and then up my arm. The sense of the moving venom was followed by intense nerve pain that manifested even before each area swelled. Slowly but surely, my hand swelled until it looked like a surgical glove that had been blown up like a balloon. My hand began to discolor, as did my arm, as the swelling increased and worked its way up to my shoulder, chest, and back. They warned me that the entire appendage would probably turn black and that I should be prepared for the worst.

The medical folks were concerned about a lot of things, primarily

my heart
my kidneys
tissue necrosis
blood clots
liver failure

Debating whether or not to begin antivenin, they were receiving step-by-step direction from National Poison Control. Because of the tremendous cost of CroFab, the antivenin used for snakebites (each vial costs about $2,500, each infusion requires 4–6 vials, and the treatment is usually 4 infusions), they do not immediately administer the drug unless they know the snake was a baby; babies evidently hang on to the skin longer and release more venom than adults unless the adult is close to death. But when my swelling started progressing far quicker than anticipated and the situation became life-threatening, they began CroFab here at Angel Hospital.

At that point, they informed me they needed to transfer me to the trauma center at Mission Hospital in Asheville. I continued receiving CroFab in the ambulance and then was treated in the ED there for two or three hours.

It was a riot: at both hospitals, there was a steady stream of employees, interns, PAs, nurses, and even physicians coming to my room to ask me if they could look at my hand and arm. They kept saying, “We’ve trained for this, but we’ve never actually seen a snakebite victim before! What did it feel like? How did you know it was a copperhead? How does it feel now?” Some of the younger ones actually said, “Oh, that is SO COOL!” I felt like part of a freak show at the circus or, as my daughter-in-law, Estel said, a member of the ensemble of The Greatest Showman. :-)

They administered round #2 of CroFab and moved me to the Trauma Unit. The swelling continued to increase, but—I’m convinced, because of the prayers of all of you—my vital signs and blood work, monitored every 15 minutes or so, stayed positively perfect. By midnight, however, I could not move my hand at all. They gave me round #3 of CroFab at 3:00 am, and round #4 at 9:00.

At that point, I began moving my fingers a bit. I sensed the swelling was beginning to diminish. The medical staff had prepared me for a long stay, possibly a week or two. But within hours, they decided to release me. Poison Control ended up being a bit unhappy about that decision, but I promise you, all I wanted to do was get home to my own bed.

Over the past two days, the swelling and pain has continued traveling across my chest, but Poison Control assures me this is no big deal. Lymph node involvement is completely normal, and the symptoms should dissipate in the next two weeks or so.

My arm is NOT black. My hand is NOT necrotic. The swelling has tremendously decreased. I am typing now without much discomfort. I am believing my hand and arm will be completely healed and restored, to the glory of God.

So thank you! Thanks for all the love. Thanks for the prayers and encouragement and support. It is nothing short of miraculous that everything the medical professionals anticipated and warned against has not come to pass. I must tell you that I have never once been anxious or fearful. If anything, I was massively annoyed that this incident was cramping my style and interfering with my plans. I had the peace of God that surpasses all understanding. Through the entire ordeal, the verse that kept flowing through my mind was from Luke 10:19:

"I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy; nothing will harm you."

Now, I don’t recommend trampling on the nasty creatures. But it was enough of a correlation to give me complete confidence in the power of Christ in me. A snake ain’t no thang to Him.

However, I’d like to recommend rubber boots and leather gloves whenever you work in the garden.

Thanks again for prayerfully carrying my family and me through this experience.

Love,
Lindsay