Local Reporter Recalls Surviving Rattlesnake Bite as Mendocino County Death Brings Awareness to the Danger

Rattlesnake [Image from the Department of Fish and Wildlife]

That was the third fatal rattlesnake bite this year.

In light of that incident, a local reporter shared a detailed firsthand account of surviving a rattlesnake bite in Mendocino County decades earlier. The experience, while dated, offers a look at how such encounters can unfold—and how treatment has changed over time.

By Karen Rifkin and shared with us by the Anderson Valley Advertiser
…On Tuesday, May 4th, 1982, after enjoying a full day of sun and fun at Lake Pennyroyal out at Round Mountain, my two friends and I were walking back to our car on a little-used path. As I stepped over a shallow creek bed, I felt something pinch me just above my ankle on my right leg and looked down to see what it was. Lo and behold, there was a five foot snake, tannish brown, that looked to be sleeping. I think I must have brushed my leg up against him and he awoke to bite me—no warning, no rattle—and then went back to sleep.

I turned to my friends and told them that I had just been bitten by a snake and they recoiled in shock. Very soon, I felt a tingling in all my extremities—lips, hands, feet. It was indeed a rattler. We took no precautions, no tourniquet or cutting, and walked hurriedly back to the car.

We drove back to Ukiah to the General Hospital on the corner of Bush and Low Gap and, as I walked in, pronounced that I had been bitten by a rattlesnake. They put me in a wheel chair and took me to a room where I was attended to by Dr. Robert Steinberg. The pain was overwhelming and I considered there was the possibility that I might die.

Steinberg put a tight tourniquet around my leg above the bite, cut into where the puncture was and actually sucked on the wound. He considered it not to be a big deal and left the room. At that point I was in even more pain, both from the venom and the tightness of the tourniquet and began screaming out in pain.

He returned to my room and a friend of mine was there, who coincidentally was well-read in how to attend to a rattlesnake bite. She told him that it was detrimental to put the tourniquet on so tightly, that it could force the venom into one spot which could cause a problem for my foot, that cutting and sucking was outdated.

He removed the tourniquet and, as she suggested, moved it up my leg, tied more loosely, and, over a period of time, moved it lower, continuing to keep it loose enough so that I was no longer screaming from the pain.

Then he decided it might be a big deal and said I should have the antivenom. I refused knowing that anti-venom could cause its own problems. He was frightened for my life and put a book in front of me to read about how snake venom can cause anaphylactic shock and then death.

I asked him to give me a small sample to see how I would react. At this point, he was figuratively pulling out his hair. He called in a specialist who gave me the sample. We waited and with no side effects, I said yes to it—six bottles through an IV. Things calmed down.

Later that night, my leg tremendously swollen, my knee no longer visible as a separate part of my body, I was still in great pain and the tingling continued but felt I was probably going to live.

One problem with anti-venom is that it causes your platelet count to go low causing your blood to not coagulate properly. So they gave me a platelet transfusion and then wanted to give me a blood transfusion which I declined.

The blisters came later that night, about 10 of them, all up and down my calf, one looked to have a half a cup of fluid in it. They continued to grow for days.

My leg was swollen enormously all the way to my hip and, Dr. Bowen, the orthopedic surgeon from Willits, came to pay a visit a couple of days later. Because the swelling was so pronounced, he came to see if it was necessary to cut into the ACTUAL FLESH of my leg, to relieve the pressure so as not to damage my nerves. He said it would not be necessary. I found out later that was the reason for his visit and, if I had known at the time that was what they were considering, I would have jumped out of the window.

By Saturday, I was feeling well enough to leave the hospital. Steinberg returned to sign me out. He wanted to cut all the enormous blisters, drain them, remove the skin and wrap them in gauze. I said that was not going to happen. (When I got home, I carefully popped them and let them drain over days and sat in the sun until the scabs formed.)

My leg was still enormous and painful to the touch. I was on crutches for six weeks afterward.

Right after I was bitten, some folks at Round Mountain were notified that there was a rattler out there on the creek. They gathered it up and took it to the back of the property.

Ahhh, the good old days.

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Medical guidance for snakebites has evolved significantly since the early 1980s. Techniques described in this account—such as cutting the wound or applying a tourniquet—are no longer recommended by modern medical professionals.

According to California health authorities, the only venomous snake native to the region is the rattlesnake, and prompt medical care remains critical in all suspected bites.