Rattlesnake bite

As follows is a quote from a site created by a young man following his experience of being at the receiving end of a rattlesnake bite.

On July 21, 2002, just after my 13th birthday, I was bitten by a Western Diamondback rattlesnake. I was located on a trail in a hiking area near Yosemite National Park, California. The bite occurred when I was sitting on a small boulder at a distance of 4.5 miles from the trailhead with my cabin group at camp. I had my arms dangling at my side, and a 5 foot long rattlesnake bit me in the middle of my left palm.

His recovery was long and painful.

I spent the next 35 days in the UC Davis hospital, had 8 surgeries performed for cleaning out the dead tissue from my arm, and finally had a skin graft from my leg to close up my arm, which had remained open for 30 days after the fasciotomy until the skin graft surgery. That is 10 surgeries in total at UC Davis.

The site has several photographs of his arm and hand at various surgery stages. The photographs are not for the weak stomach, but are fascinating.