NEW: Florida man accepts his fate after being bitten by a diamondback rattlesnake, says he is "cooked" but at least it will make a good meme.
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) December 31, 2024
Gotta respect his commitment to the meme game.
Social media influencer David Humphlett told the snake "good game" (gg) before he was… pic.twitter.com/Vmwh4ve3RT
They're saving him at the hospital. He received 88 vials of antivenin. You may think he's an idiot, but is he? Hearing his words called to mind Seneca's "How to Die" (commission earned) which I happen to be in the middle of reading:
There’s no life that’s not short. If you examine the nature of things, even the life of Nestor is short, or that of Sattia, who ordered inscribed on her tombstone that she had lived ninety-nine years. You see in her someone glorying in a long old age. But who could have endured her, if she had filled out a full century? Just as with storytelling, so with life: it’s important how well it is done, not how long. It doesn’t matter at what point you call a halt. Stop wherever you like; only put a good closer on it. Farewell.
We're already screwed anyways. We're cooked. This is it. This is death. It came by snake. And you have the presence of mind to proclaim: Cool snake.
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Admit it now, Ann ... you had to Google the word antivenin. Didn't you. DIDN'T YOU!!???!!!
Oh, and his girlfriend works as a nurse at the hospital he ended up at. Imagine getting that news while you're at work nursing at the hospital.
I admire his courage and keeping his cool. Too bad he had drive 30 minutes, and the helicopter couldn't have picked him up. We admire people who die well. But they're doing it us, not for themselves. And of course, you can intend to "die well" but what that means is open to interpetation. Hemingway thought suicide was a noble way to go. Others, thought he was a coward.
And what a contrast this young man is to old man Anderson cooper, who couldn't even down a shot of tequila. LOL!
“Some things in life are bad
They can really make you mad
Other things just make you swear and curse
When you're chewing on life's gristle
Don't grumble, give a whistle
And this'll help things turn out for the best
And
Always look on the bright side of life
Always look on the light side of life”
"Hemingway thought suicide was a noble way to go."
So did Seneca: "[I]n every kind of enslavement, the road to freedom lies open. If one’s mind is ill and wretched from its own failings, it can make an end of its own sufferings. I will say to one who has fallen in with a king who fires arrows into the chests of his friends, or to another whose master gluts fathers on the guts of their children, 'What do you groan for, senseless man? What hope do you have that some foe will liberate you—by destroying your whole family—or some king will wing his way to you, extending his power from afar? Anywhere you cast your glance, the end of your troubles can be found. You see that high, steep place? From there comes the descent to freedom. You see that sea, that river, that well? Freedom lies there, at its bottom. You see that short, gnarled, unhappy tree? Freedom hangs from it. Look to your own neck, your windpipe, your heart; these are the paths out of slavery. Are these exits I show you too laborious, demanding of resolve and strength? Then, if you ask what is the path to freedom, I say: any vein in your body.'"
Seneca and Hemingway were wrong.
Like Ann, I too am a Stoic.
In my neck of the woods, the advice for snake bites is to take a picture of it if you're able. If you misidentify the snake, you might delay appropriate treatment. You're also supposed to keep your heart rate down if you can.
The tone of the commentary was probably due to the shock of the situation.
From today’s Daily Stoic challenge, “ Seneca said that if you went to bed thinking that you had lived your whole life, the morning would feel like a bonus. We can apply the same thinking annually.
2024 is dead and gone. Who we were in 2024 is dead and gone. Here we are, lucky enough to rise again in 2025. A year not guaranteed to anyone. We have beaten death. We have been given a fresh chance at life. So who will we be?”
Following the CNN drug theme, I translated cooked to toked with similar effect.
I have a character in a historical Western screenplay who dies by snakebite. After killing the snake, he grabs it to toss aside. Reflexively, it bites him again, which is something Diamondbacks do.
I don't discuss my screenplays here as a certain other commenter is wont to do (*cough*, lol), but this story resonated for me.
"Seneca said that if you went to bed thinking that you had lived your whole life, the morning would feel like a bonus"
That sounds like Seneca restated by a chirpy modern-day American. "The morning would feel like a bonus"? Quote text.
I do agree that he wrote that you should regard each day as the equivalent of a lifetime and the end of the day as death, but that was to get familiar with death and regard is as benevolent, not to wake up happy!
Admirable emotional control in a bad situation. I am surprised there was no sucking some of the poison out- does that even really work? You go out into the woods anywhere in the lower South and diamondbacks are a threat you need to always be aware of.
Suicide or a selfie-abortion are ignoble. When is abortion a good choice? Hee Haw.
They needed to hurry their bravery along. That situation is crazy.
"I have a character in a historical Western screenplay who dies by snakebite. After killing the snake, he grabs it to toss aside. Reflexively, it bites him again, which is something Diamondbacks do."
Great story. I think there are some other tales of an animal that does its killing after it is dead.
Here's the Seneca passage I was thinking of: "Make haste to live, Lucilius, and think each of your days to be an individual life. The man who accustoms himself to this way of thought, for whom life is complete each day, is free of worry; but to those who live for hope, each moment, as it draws near, slips away, and in steals greediness and, the thing most wretched and cause of all most wretched things, the fear of death.... Go ahead, then—deny that it’s a great gift of Nature that we must die. But many are ready to swap worse things for it: to betray a friend in order to live longer, or to hand over their children, with their own hands, for lechery, just to see the next dawn—a dawn that’s privy to their many sins. This desire for life must be knocked out of us. We must learn that it makes no difference when you undergo the thing that must be undergone some time or other; that it matters how well you live, not how long. And often the 'well' lies in not living long."
"Admit it now, Ann ... you had to Google the word antivenin."
That makes no sense. If I didn't already know that the word used in the thing I linked to was wrong, why would I have looked it up. Either you know or you don't know.
That young man's cheerful courage in the face of grim death is classic as are his Nikes, which we were wearing back in the 70s, although we were stuck with tube socks.
The source is Ryan Holiday The Daily Stoic author and publisher. He paraphrases some Stoic writings.
Nobody noticed that 2025 is the Chinese Year of the Snake?
It is common to encounter diamondback rattlers here in Tucson, but mostly from April through October. If you back away and leave them alone. they will not attack. They are purely defensive and only bite when you stumble upon them (intentionally or unintentionally).
Also, the older snakes are less likely to kill you because they control the amount of venom the inject. It's the younger, smaller ones that you have to worry about.
That is the story of Joe Biden.
Not to say snakes like diamondbacks aren't dangerous, because they certainly are, but deaths from snakebites in the US are almost vanishingly rare. Usually a result of incredible stupidity or incredible bad luck, and we have antivenins or antivenoms or whatever we're calling them now for most snakes in the US. I've known people whose very living is going out and photographing cool snakes, they take sensible precautions and they've never been tagged.
Even Australia, with pretty much all the most venomous snakes in the world, only has around single-digits per year.
Now India on the other hand....
I'd like to know more about this story. Why didn't he hear -- and heed -- the snake's rattles? The sound is pretty distinctive. Was the snake asleep and he stepped on it? Sixty-plus years ago, as a boy scout, I was trained to watch where I put my feet when I'm hiking, and to look and see what's on the other side of a log before I step over it. Nature is not a Disney theme park, people!
"The cost of rattlesnake antivenom can vary widely, ranging from $2,000 to $15,000 per vial depending on the specific type and brand12345. The average cost for one vial is around $3,500. However, the total cost for treatment can vary depending on the severity of the snakebite and the amount of antivenom needed."
https://reptilesblog.com/how-much-does-a-vial-of-rattlesnake-antivenom-cost/
According to the National Center For Biotechnology Information (NCBI), only five deaths occur for approximately 9,000 people bitten per year in the United States.
A few decades ago I had to make some business trips back and forth to the Southwest Research Institute in San Antonio. It has a large campus, including some acres of scrub where they had a jogging trail. However I was dissuaded from trying it out when I saw the signs warning about rattlesnakes at the trailhead.
BTW, I've taken business trips to Tucson (actually to the University of Arizona) and business trips to Texas cities like El Paso, San Antonio, and Austin. None are as hot and uncomfortable as Phoenix, but Tucson is no picnic either.
I've treated lots of rattlesnake bites - they almost all involved alcohol and/or stupidity. (As does most trauma, for that matter...)
Perhaps this kid was different, I don't know...hanging around that snake was kind of stupid, at least.
"Rattlesnake bites can have long-term impacts on the lives of the victims, extending into several years after the event. One study put the percent of affected victims that had lingering negative symptoms of a rattlesnake bite at between 30% and 70%. These symptoms varied in terms of intensity and severity, but most did not result in significant disability.
Long term affects of rattlesnake bites include:
Kidney failure
Fang bite scars
Psychological scars
Pain-related to fatigue
Physical weakness
Possible motor deficits
Severe shock that could lead to a stroke.
Antivenom can also have negative long-term effects on the internal organs, such as distorted or damaged kidney function. The benefits of administering antivenom to a rattlesnake victim might not outweigh the risks, so each case must be judged by the medical provider. It’s also important to consider that the long-term effects of envenomation of humans by specific species of rattlesnakes have not been fully studied yet."
https://selectsafety.net/what-are-the-long-term-effects-of-a-rattlesnake-bite/
Not until January 29th. We're still in the Year of the Dragon until then.
I was surprised to see this post as the first item I came across in 2025. Just yesterday I had my first encounter with an Eastern Diamondback in the wild and was fortunate that I didn’t get bit. My two dogs came upon him and we ended up separated by an 8 foot rattlesnake coiled up and ready to strike. Something in my voice convinced the dogs to let him be and as I used a leash to distract the snake the dogs scooted by and we were gone. I didn’t have the presence of mind to take pictures. Guess it wasn’t my (or the dogs)
time to die!
I have a theory that people are less likely to have suicidal thoughts in the hours following a rattlesnake bite.
No, it does not work. Forget the Boy Scout Handbook stuff (well, at least my ancient Boy Scout Handbook).
It's simple:
Get away from the freakin snake.
Do not cut the wound.
Do not suck the wound.
Do not apply a tourniquet.
Stay calm.
Get to the hospital immediately.
"The source is Ryan Holiday The Daily Stoic author and publisher. He paraphrases some Stoic writings."
What was he paraphrasing? You can't trust paraphrasing. I don't want to portray him as a syrupy popularizer. I don't think you are even quoting him. You seem to be paraphrasing him. I suspect distortion here, and I'm giving you original text.
That's what I was thinking. Given his rather brash reaction post-facto, was he doing anything to annoy the snake in the first place, for clicks? The bite's pretty high up on his leg. Why were they 'peeling the bark' I wonder?
I stepped over a log once, hunting in South Texas, when I knew better, and sure enough, one reared up, buzzing away. That's when I learned that, when I'm really scared, I scream just like a little girl. It made a nice hat band.
I was prepared to mock him as caring more about the content than his life, but no, he was obviously in shock. Crazy.
for field aid : is not tourniquet between wound location and heart most advisable??
was he dressed appropriately for the expedition? SHORTS?? wtf
Why is everybody reading the Stoics these days?
That fits my snakebite event. About 40 years ago, I was playing golf in southern California. I hooked a ball into heavy rough and went looking for it. I never heard any telltale rattle, but I came to suspect that a juvenile rattler bit me near the ankle. The odd part was that I thought that I had merely walked into some sort of protrusion in the vegetation, and I merely noted the bleeding, gave the ball up as lost, and finished the round of golf. I later put a band aid on it, and it was only the following day that I became concerned, when closer examination showed two puncture marks, black and blue discoloration, and swelling. I stupidly did not seek medical care, so the thing ran its course over 2 weeks or so. There was a period of about 2 months in which my ankle was sore and had reduced range of motion. This wasn't stoicism. This was stupidity.
I am a great admirer of Stoic wisdom, but Ryan Holiday's books leave me a bit cold. Too cute.
This social media influencer is just another idiot seeking his fifteen minutes of fame.
I've had several very close encounters with rattlers over the course of my life. None of them rattled, tho they were in striking distance. I heard recently that in Colorado, rattlers are loosing their ability or inclination to rattle to escape the wild boar who now hunt them. No idea how widespread that may be but I always watch where I step when I hike.
Speaking of cooked, from NOLA
https://x.com/Iraqveteran8888/status/1874485456471204075
I started going to AA last year and that put me in mind of Stoicism, what with the serenity prayer and all that. Also Ann mentioned the book about death (bought it via the portal). It does seem to be a trend though. I got fed up with AA, but the interest in Stoicism has stayed with me, as has sobriety.
Way, way back in the day, there was a TV show called Michigan Outdoors. One of the episodes (1960+/-) filmed a local dude that allowed a eastern massasauga rattlesnake to bite him on his arm with subsequent first aid, etc. Unfortunately, the episodes haven't saved. Crazy didn't start today.
What amazes me is the sheer enthusiasm they have for the subject.
“I stepped over a log once, hunting in South Texas, when I knew better, and sure enough, one reared up, buzzing away. That's when I learned that, when I'm really scared, I scream just like a little girl. It made a nice hat band.”
Aggie? You must be the writer of Hi and Lois, because you gave me many laughs!
At 73 I look at it as; Well. Let's see what I can still get up to today.
We were fishing the driftless area in western Wisconsin and on a limestone shelf was a rattlesnake warning us to keep away. We backtracked and walked around.
Lol. "Influencers" my ass. The only people this guy influences are dumbasses and retards and good luck to both categories. The moral of Humphletts's story is don't mess around with big venomous snakes that bite.
Old and Slow: I went to my first AA meeting in 1989. After a few years I also lost interest in AA, but have remained alcohol free as well. Keep it up, and I think I'll get a book on Stoicism. Any recommendations?
Glad the kid will live!
Easy for him to say.
Re AA: I like that Netflix show "Loudermilk."
I would be curious to see the quote from Hemingway on the nobility of suicide. I think he killed himself because he thought that his mind had already by ruined by the electro-shock therapy that they had done on him to treat depression, and he was in some level of despair over losing the memories that he had spent his entire life gathering.
I am re-reading "A Moveable Feast" right now, the manuscript he was working on in the months before his death, after recovering, by happenstance, a pile of papers he had written in the '20s in Paris, and you don't get a sense of the suicide coming, the way you might have, well I did, anyway, anticipated the suicide of David Foster Wallace on reading "Infinite Jest." I joked that it was the "world's longest suicide note."
Since I brought up A Moveable Feast, and the thread leans this way, I may as well relate my experience reading it again. First, I was in Key West for New Years, and so reading Hemingway on the front porch swing, while watching the tourist amble by, was a natural choice. Anyway, you have to remember that it was left unfinished by his suicide, so you have to forgive some stuff, some of the chapters border on parody, but others are amazing. I think I was not mature, or well I guess "old" enough to understand much of it when I read it in college. Part of the problem with it is that he deals with his first marriage, and the meeting of his 2nd wife while still married, and it was edited largely by his fourth wife. Anyway, part of what is nice about re-reading it is having Google to understand references that were lost on me the first time, and in the seventies, there was really no practical way to look this stuff up, like when he and his first wife ate "jugged hare in a delicious red wine sauce" after a day of skiing. It turns out that after skinning and gutting the hare, you hang it by its hind legs and its blood gathers in the chest cavity, and you mix the blood with vinegar and wine to keep it from coagulating, maybe you pour the vinegar and wine into the chest cavity first then gather the blood, and you cook the entire hare, after quartering it, in a jug, and use the preserved blood for a sauce. It was a different world then, between the world wars in Europe.
The San Gabriel Mountains are sort of the northern barrier to the Los Angeles Basin. We've got lots of people, and the San Gabriel Mountains have lots of snakes. But almost all rattle snake bites in the San Gabriels involve three "T's".
They are Tequila, Testosterone and Twenties. Young men fool around with rattle snakes and "find out". That's why most hospitals along the south face of the San Gabriels are well stocked with anti-venin.
Said terrorist has been named and was apparently born/raised in Houston, served in the US Army, although he had an Islamic-sounding name and is rumored to have been flying an ISIS flag from his bumper. In other words, 'we may never know what his motivations were'.
I have to kill rattlesnakes now and then. I have a small shovel I use. First snake I dispatched with a whack nearly took his head clean off. The snake was laying there with his head attached by a couple of strands of skin, but when I leaned close and reached for him his mouth opened and he kept trying to bite me. Held him up by the tail and his head was dangling there like a yo-yo at the end of its string, snapping and hissing.
Too bad the snake didn't decide to go back for seconds.
Hello literal minded louie: I'll look for that quote where Hemingway says "I think Suicide in noble" when i have time. Till then: He shot himself. And he had his hero in "Across the River and into the trees" shoot himself. And he talked to both Martha Gellhorn and Mary Hemingway about suicide. But I guess he didn't think it was "Noble" - he thought it was something bad. Which is why he picked up that shotgun..
But if you want to quibble over the word "noble" - go for it.
I've only had one experience with rattlesnakes. While running down a mountain path, I jumped over a stick, and then over another stick, which then rattled at me. I guess I was lucky, it was fairly early in the AM, and Mr. rattlesnake was sunning himself trying to warm up.
Otherwise, I've tried to avoid them wheneve possible. And wear thick pants. That was the kid's mistake. Never go bare-legged in snake country. Unless you're jogging and a good jumper. And feel lucky.
I don't know about Ryan Holiday's other books, but the quotations in The Daily Stoic are not paraphrased, they are accurately translated, except that he sometimes omits context. For instance, January 3rd is only the end of a long sentence. Seneca wrote "Consider in your memory" eight different things that will lead to this conclusion: "You will realize that you are dying before your time". Holiday quotes the last two of the eight with the conclusion, as if they were the only ones leading to it. (I've been looking up the Latin and Greek originals and copying them into a Word document.)
I normally avoid anthologies of ancient authors: much better to read the works through. However, the three authors that contribute 95% of his quotations are exceptions to the rule. Epictetus' Discourses are notes from lectures written down by a student, and tend to be a bit repetitious and disorganized. Marcus Aurelius' diary was not written for publication, and is an even more chaotic mass of tidbits fascinating in themselves, but (like Pascal's Pensées or La Rochefoucauld) just as rewarding read in any order. Seneca's prose is more linear, but is also a vast corpus: 1,000+ pages, so having the best bits picked out is a good way to start. All three work tolerably well as sources for an anthology, where "Best Bits" of Homer, or Plato, or Ovid, or Greek Tragedy, would not.
Also, neither Epictetus nor Marcus Aurelius is known for his elegant style, though Seneca is.
Why Stoicism? People are trying to fill a gaping hole in their souls, or find some order and meaning in their lives, but can't bring themselves to believe in the Christian (or Jewish, or any) God. A non-theistic but principled philosophy such as Stoicism falls into the vast middle ground between organized religion on the one side and brutal Lucretianism (atheist materialist hedonism) on the other. Some Eastern religions do the same, at least for Westerners.
I used to have interactions with a rattler on weekends when I worked for Anaheim Park and Rec during my first two years of college: Dangerous Dan the Nature Man kept a rattlesnake in a terrarium in a storage room under the bleachers at Pearson Park… where I kept all the playground equipment. Every morning I would unlock the door and be greeted by the rattling. Dan swore the snake was de-fanged.
No.
I live in the Sonoran desert in winter. Many snakes. The conventional wisdom is, you probably won't die, but many legs end up amputated.
In Latin?
So did they kill it?
I call fake news. Fang marks are too far apart to come from that size snake
Generally agree about Hemingway's suicide. It was clear that the amnesia caused by the electroshock terrified him, but also important to keep in mind that the reason he had the electroshock to begin with was severe and seemingly unmotivated (i.e., not the result of the death of a spouse or child, etc.) major depression.
The parallel to David Foster Wallace is a good one. It's now fairly well known that, tragically, the stage of just coming out of major depression is in some ways more dangerous than the depths. The treatment is either starting to work or the disease is beginning remission on its own, and the person for the first time on months has enough energy to act but has not yet recovered enough to have sufficient hope for the future. Mental health professionals are now encouraged to be extremely watchful right after the initiation of SSRIs. As I understand the story, Wallace's doctor and his wife were both being careful and not leaving him by himself, but Wallace talked her into going to the grocery store and then rushed to hang himself in his garage.
Hemingway and Wallace were both absolutely obsessed with being "honest" in their writing (every other aspect of Hemingway's life: not so much), and I wonder if that had something to do with their suicides.
My grandfather had a ranch on the north side of the Bears Paw mountains in Montana. He had a quart jar 3/4 full of rattlesnake rattles from all of the snakes they had killed over the years. I worked for him a couple of summers in high school and once came upon a snake wrapped around a small bush which were were in the process killing when we realized it was actually two snakes. My brother, who inherited the ranch, was bit as he stepped off of a swather. Understandably, the snake was upset by all the commotion and the noise of the machine even at idle would have hidden the rattle sound. But my brother said it was the sickest he has ever been. I would be more inclined to believe him if he weren't spending his summers on the ranch in Montana and his winters in Arizona, but there is no accounting for tastes. Me, I've lived my life avoiding places with rattlesnakes: Alaska, Canadian Rockies, etc. People claim there are none in the Gallatin valley but I still jump and give out a girlish squeal when I see a twisted root on the trails.
I recently read Letters From A Stoic by Seneca and enjoyed it very much.
I was going to prose on but saw Dr Weevil's comment at 2:28 pm so won't. The political atheists and their materialism, of whatever species, will be the end of us.
for field aid : is not tourniquet between wound location and heart most advisable??
Not anymore.
Likewise. I'll also add the 'invincibility of youth'.
when I leaned close and reached for him his mouth opened and he kept trying to bite me.
A rattlesnake's severed head is dangerous for a remarkably long time. My grandfather was a cowboy who killed every rattlesnake he saw on general principle, and taught me how to dispatch them safely and bury the head after taking it off.
He told me a just-so story about a cowboy who was bitten through his boots, crawled into a cave, and died. Another cowboy came along and found his skeleton and claimed the boots for himself. There was supposedly enough desiccated venom clinging to a detached fang to kill the second cowboy when it punctured his foot as he put the boots on.
This is almost certainly a baseless fable, but the corpse of a rattlesnake retains the capacity for reflex movements for many hours after death. I once killed one in the mid-morning, cut off its head and buried it as I had been instructed, and draped the body on a fence for later retrieval to make a snakeskin hat band. One of the Mexican ranch hands picked it up in the late afternoon, and was badly frightened when it contracted around his hand and the bloody stump of the neck scored a direct hit on his forearm.
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