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Deadly African snake on the loose in South Carolina!

BenBurch said:
You know, we are so good at technologically-assisted decimation of animal species that I wonder if we can't come up with a snake terminator robot?
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But then what do we do when the snake terminator robots run amok?
 
Craig4 said:
You can get the anti venom in the US. There is a Florida Company that makes a type specific and African polyvalent to treat Gabon Viper bites. You can also buy online, a doasage kit of shelf stabilized anti venom for about 300 Euro but that's a single dose.
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That bugs me. A dosage of anti venom for an exotic snake from the other side of the world costs 800 bucks or so. The same for a locally very common poisonous snake costs upwards of $20K

Is it just because Americans never leave their living rooms and cars anymore, so they never get bit and there is no demand for anti venom?

According to this story, the same anti-venom is used for copperheads, rattlesnakes and cotton mouths.
"For North America, the pit vipers, the rattlesnakes, the copperheads and cottonmouths, there is one anti venom for them all," said Daum. "Its called CroFab..."

But the remedy comes at a price. A vial of anti venom can cost $2,000 or more. Humans would need about 10 or more vials if venom had entered their systems
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Seems to me some enterprising young appalachian baptist preacher would see an opportunity to make a good living selling anti-venom...
 
Rabies prophylaxis is also quite pricey as I found out when I had a potential exposure and the local medical treatment centers told me to go take a hike unless I had the money up front.
 
Bikewer said:
Chicken....

Famous St. Louis Zoo director Marlin Perkins was almost killed by a Gaboon viper years ago.
They were de-lousing the snake, which involves putting the animal in a "press" (a lot like the old tennis-racket presses) and then using a tweezers.... A tedious task.
In the course of this, the press came loose and the snake got Perkins with one fang on a finger.
Within an hour he was near death, bleeding from every orifice, severe bruising anywhere he'd been touched, depressed heart and respiration.
They used three different types of antivenin on him, as no one had handled a bite by one of these serpents.
Quite a dangerous critter. They have very long fangs and inject a lot of venom.
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This appears to be more Chinese Whispers/Telephone with no two accounts alike and Snopes saying False.
 
Jim_MDP said:
This appears to be more Chinese Whispers/Telephone with no two accounts alike and Snopes saying False.
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Are you sure? The account I found on Snopes only said the claim that he was bitten by a rattlesnake on camera was false (he was bitten, but in a non-filmed rehearsal), and the only mention of the Gaboon Viper refers to its mention in his obit. I've found the story a couple of other places (the Gaboon Viper), including a late in life interview and all seem to treat it as true. Must admit, I'm curious now and would be interested to see what you found.
 
madurobob said:
The bit about the anti-venom is worrisome. I wonder what it'd cost the local hospital to order enough for a couple of treatments just in case?

Last year I had two friends bitten by copperheads. They both reported about the same thing from their hospital bill - about $20K per treatment for the anti-venom alone. One friend required a single treatment, the other two consecutive treatments. Since copperheads are pretty common around here, it surprised me the anti-venom was so spendy.
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Wow. That much? Seriously. And we wonder why insurance costs so much.
My uncle clobbered those suckers to death in his Arkansas garden.
I think they charge that much because they know you have to have it.
In the 1970`s there was a movie where someone told this one woman how she wasnt looking so good, as both he and she knew there was this particular dreaded disease going around?, and she was told she wasn`t looking so good(insinuating she likely contracted the disease). And i think it was the husband that didn`t want to pay such a steep price for the anti-serum, and when she heard him say that, she said something like ''Buyy itttt. `` BUYYYY ITTTTTTTT!!!''(her voice stearn and quivering). It was a funny scene.
 
PinkRabbit said:
Are you sure? The account I found on Snopes only said the claim that he was bitten by a rattlesnake on camera was false (he was bitten, but in a non-filmed rehearsal), and the only mention of the Gaboon Viper refers to its mention in his obit. I've found the story a couple of other places (the Gaboon Viper), including a late in life interview and all seem to treat it as true. Must admit, I'm curious now and would be interested to see what you found.
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No I'm not sure. You're right about the Snopes page, I was rapid scanning 6-7 other pages and overstated that. What I noticed was that each was a slightly different account and none had any cites, they were mostly articles on the man.

I hadn't found an actual interview, I'd like to read that if you have the url handy.
 
madurobob said:
Seems to me some enterprising young appalachian baptist preacher would see an opportunity to make a good living selling anti-venom...
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.
He should rather be a preacher focused on religion only and be like a Pentecostal.
Oh, nevermind. Whoops. Just read where a Pentecostal preacher died after being bitten. I guess he just didnt have quite enough religion in him. (You can google words such as 'Pentecostal snake handling') Enjoy. Pictures, too.
 
madurobob said:
Is it just because Americans never leave their living rooms and cars anymore, so they never get bit and there is no demand for anti venom?
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It's the scumbag hospitals over charging as usual. Same reason why an ambulance ride will cost you 1-2K but an equivalent taxi ride is $10, and a police vehicle could take you that distance for free. Airlifts cost around 20K too.
 
Jim_MDP said:
No I'm not sure. You're right about the Snopes page, I was rapid scanning 6-7 other pages and overstated that. What I noticed was that each was a slightly different account and none had any cites, they were mostly articles on the man.

I hadn't found an actual interview, I'd like to read that if you have the url handy.
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This is one of the articles I found with a very short interview. The bite is mentioned in passing along with a few medical details, but not much. There was a slightly longer mention in another interview that I (of course) now can't find again, but even that wasn't top heavy with info. Somewhere a page also mentioned a date of 1929 for when it happened (but I don't guarantee it at all as it was some kind of factoid page and those are not notoriously trustworthy).

http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1985/-...ith-Death/id-7db5ab559d7668e5c70f2b38c493e30b
Just ran across a second, longer interview. The bite is mentioned only in passing though. Still can't find the link I want.

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/...2270296_1_gaboon-marlin-perkins-cancer-victim

Edited to add another link.

Ah-hah, this is the link I remembered. It's an old People Mag with an interview and has more details than anything else I've seen, and the story generally goes with the other versions I've found.

http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20082838,00.html
 
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BenBurch said:
You know, we are so good at technologically-assisted decimation of animal species that I wonder if we can't come up with a snake terminator robot?
Click to expand...
.
You probably aren't going to believe me when I say this, but one of the companies I own specializes in invasive species control and eradication. We are, in fact, developing a snake-terminating robot.

The current design wouldn't work on Gaboon Vipers but give us a few more years and maybe we'll have something for those bad boys too.
 
Cool Hand Luke said:
.
You probably aren't going to believe me when I say this, but one of the companies I own specializes in invasive species control and eradication. We are, in fact, developing a snake-terminating robot.

The current design wouldn't work on Gaboon Vipers but give us a few more years and maybe we'll have something for those bad boys too.
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You know there's a really bad SYFY (god, I hate that name) movie in this, right? Starring Billy Baldwin (stoner for God) and several scantily dressed, large breasted women, at least one of whom will find him stunningly attractive (which will be the most unbelievable part of the whole production).

Seriously though, that's actually pretty cool. I didn't know anyone was working on that kind of thing.
 
I'd heard there was a kind of snake-collector robot being developed for Guam, so that snakes would go in but not come out.
 
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