Dumbest injury, ever.

Do Not Touch

It’s tough to say what the dumbest injury I’ve ever seen is, but I’ll submit this for your consideration.  I had a patient who noticed a rattlesnake on the road, and decided to save it.  He was concerned the snake would get run over by a car.  He therefore walked up and grabbed it by the tail, thinking he would “sling it to the side of the road.”  Of course, the snake simply turned back on him, and bit his hand.

At this point, the patient decided that instead of saving the snake, he would club it to death with a large wrench.  For some reason, he kept the dead snake, and put it in a bucket.  He came into the ER, and had to get anti-venom for his snake bite.  I asked him why he thought it was a good idea to grab a rattlesnake, and he argued that he said “I grab snakes all the time, and I never get bit!”

“You mean, until today,” I said.

Two days later, he was back at home, and was “fooling around” with the dead snake.  Incredibly, he somehow was bitten again, this time on the other hand.  I’ve heard of bites from dead rattlesnakes happening right after they die, but I really don’t know how this could have happened two days later.  Fortunately for the patient, he did not appear to get anymore venom into his hand, but he did develop a wound infection and he came back into the ER for antibiotics.