Water Moccasin kills soldier

[dmccarty]

This was a VERY strange story.

Dont read it Eddie.

Special Forces soldier killed by snake bites :: WRAL.com

The soldier was Special Forces trainee down at Ft. Bragg doing a land navigation exercise. He went missing after one check point. After 21 hours of searching his body was found. The guess was that he might have died of heat exhaustion.

The autopsy is back and he was killed by MULTIPLE bites from a water moccasin!

The soldier had emergency equipment including a radio tracker which was NOT activated.

Sounds like he walked up to or on the snake which bit him MULTIPLE times and he died quick if he could not activate his beacon.

Later,
Dan

 

[mikim]

I think water mocs will "ball up" in a group sometimes....wonder if he somehow fell into one of those balls of multiple snakes.

 

[GeneD14]

Yikes!! If the poison didn't kill me fright would have.

 

[DocHeb]

If the snake gets lucky and unloads directly into a vein or artery, you'll go down pretty fast.

 

[dmccarty]

I think water mocs will "ball up" in a group sometimes....wonder if he somehow fell into one of those balls of multiple snakes.

I have been thinking of the ball of cotton mouths story for some reason, then I saw the story about the SF trainee, and then you brought it up. Sooo...

I googled.

And found this on SNOPES, snopes.com: Waterskier and Snake Nest.

They talked to a snake expert and he said that Cottonmouths are solitary critters and while they bear live babies they abandon them after birth. He said that there are no documented cases of a person suffering bites from more than one snake who were in a "cluster" or "aggregation."

The search hit another article were a different snake expert said basically the same thing. But back to Snopes, they also said that Cottonmouth bites are usually not seen as life threatening though antivenom does exist but not given in every case. "The wounds will hurt like he..... but are highly unlikely to prove fatal."

One person per year in the US dies from a Cottonmouth bite.

I don't have Eddies "issues" with snakes, , but if I stepped on a snake and it bit me multiple times I think my heart might just stop. If it did not stop there is a strong likely hood that my heart would leap from my chest.

Later,
Dan

 

[mikim]

score another one for snopes.....thanx dan