*** Treatment for Scorpion Bites ***

From: ez052296@chip.ucdavis.edu (Wallace Tam)
Newsgroups: rec.backcountry
Subject: Re: Rattler bite 5 miles from the road...
Date: 13 May 1995 01:37:20 GMT
Organization: University of California, Davis

When I went to the Grand Canyon last summer and visited the Havasupai 

Reservation, (beautiful place! 300 ft waterfalls! sorry I digress.) a 

couple of my friends got bit by a scorpion. (They weren't in a tent) Two 

of us hiked back to the nearest ranger station and got help. A couple of 

special forces guys stationed out there ran to them to find out they were 

doing OK. Later, on the the special forces guys came to talk to us. We 

asked him what to do in those situations. In his opinion, a bite victum's 

best bet is to sit and wait it out. If that person can be evacuated 

without movement and brought to a hospital, that's fine, but he gave the 

impression that most anti-venoms can be as bad as the venom itself! He 

said doctors will probably not do anything unless there is an allergic 

reaction. He stressed that these bites are usually lethal only if there 

is an allergic reaction. If there is an allergic reaction, though, death 

comes rather quickly with convulsions. Luckily, my friends were bitten by 

the larger, light brown scorpions instead fo the deadlier small, dark 

scorpions. He said he had been bitten by scorpions and rattlesnakes 

before and he just waited it out. Just what I know, not necessarily the 

truth. 

Wallace.