A few years back I went dove hunting near Lamar, CO with some friends. Last thing my wife asked me was "Do you have your boots?" I answered that they were behind the driver's seat of my truck, as always. Unfortunately, I had taken them out for a trip to Lake Powell and forgotten to put them back, something I didn't learn until I arrived at our host's home in Wylie. Opening morning the guys asked me where my boots were and I had to sheepishly reply they were at home. So I hunted in my Nikes.
The first evening we were working a stand of trees and the doves were coming in from the east. The weeds inside the tree line were head high, so we were staying just inside the weeds for cover. With all the guns, Reverend "John the Baptist" and I decided to check out the western side of the trees and see if there was any action there.
Instead of walking through the weeds we took the easy route through the freshly baled hay field that bordered the southern edge of the trees. There were very few doves on the western side, but we could still hear a lot of shots coming from the eastern side of the trees and we decided to walk back, retracing our steps through the hay field.
Suddenly I felt a prick by my Achilles tendon. My first thought was that I had walked into a yucca plant. A fraction of a second later I realized there were no yucca plants in the freshly mowed and baled hay field, and I realized that I had been snake bitten. The rattle was a couple steps away, making for the weeds. I had wanted a rattlesnake skin for a hatband for some time and I decided his skin was the one I was going to have.
Being careful not to tear him up, I aimed high over his head and hoped to get lucky and put a few pellets in his brain, knowing that if I missed I could lower my aim and try again. Sure enough my shot was too high, but before I could get a second shot off, Reverend "John the Baptist" emptied his semi-auto into the snake's body. The snake was torn up pretty good, and almost cut in half, but somehow it managed to make it a couple feet into the weeds. So much for my snakeskin souvenir!
Reverend "Paul" drove me to the hospital in Lamar. I rode in the back seat of his truck with my leg elevated, wondering what the symptoms would be - nausea, blurry vision, pain, swelling, or what. Other than swelling I was doing fine. At the hospital they drew blood, inspected the bite, and put me on an automatic blood-pressure measuring machine. I had been lucky - only one fang penetrated the skin. The other apparently went into the top of my Nikes just behind the Achilles tendon.
Eventually they put me in a bed, whose previous tenant had also been there for snake bite. The bed was a fancy model that weighed the patient electronically. When the weight seemed too high, I started shucking live shotgun shells out of the pockets in my cargo pants. The nurse wasn't at all happy about that and I gave hem to my buddy to take to the vehicles.
They drew blood again a couple times and decided the venom level in my blood was low enough that anti-venin wasn't necessary (it has its own risks). Around midnight they turned me loose with an admonition to stay off my leg and to keep it elevated. Dave, my elk hunting buddy, drove me back to Reverend "Paul"s house where I spent the night in my trailer.
Next morning my ankle was swollen up like a football and the skin was tight as a drum. I could get my Nikes on but had to leave them loose. Instead of staying home the guys dropped me off next to a gravel pit and I hunted doves right where they dropped me - walking was excruciatingly painful, so the guys played bird dog whenever I got one.
That evening we were back at the trees where I had been bitten. I was on the east side when I heard Reverend "John the Baptist" making a commotion. Turns out he had shot a dove and it landed just inside the weeds. No one was retrieving doves that landed inside the weeds, but Reverend John poked around with the barrel of his shotgun. He found his dove - it had landed on top of a very shot-up and dead snake, the same one that had bitten me! He brought it to me, carrying it draped over the barrel of his shotgun. We took it back to Paul's house and took pics, but it was was to shot up to make a decent hatband.
A word of advice: NEVER call your wife and start the conversation with "I'm OK, but..."!
