BEIJING: When a farmer in southwestern China was bitten by a cobra, his panicked wife instantly sucked out the venom as she mimicked what she had seen on television, only to end up being poisoned herself.
The old man was working in his field in Yuanyang county, Yunnan province, when the cobra bit his finger, the Jimu News reported.
His wound soon became swollen and he felt dizzy and weak. It was then that his flustered wife applied the rescue method she had seen on television by directly sucking out the venom without any protective measures.
Her husband was sent to hospital. However, hours later, his wife began to develop numbness in her mouth, tongue, face and limbs. She felt serious fatigue the next day, prompting her family to send her to hospital.
Doctors at Honghe Prefecture No 3 People’s Hospital diagnosed the couple had been poisoned by a local species of cobra and received injections of antivenom serum and other medical treatment.
The couple were discharged from the hospital a few days later after their condition stabilised.
The doctors at the Yunnan hospital said it was a common misunderstanding that rescuers should suck out snake venom. This is because the rich supply of capillaries in people’s oral mucosa could allow the venom to quickly enter a rescuer’s bloodstream once they come into contact and cause poisoning.
Furthermore, snakebite wounds usually resemble tiny pinholes. Doctors warn that venom quickly seeps into subcutaneous tissues or the bloodstream, making it virtually impossible to suck out.
The doctors said another major misunderstanding was the belief that rescuers should cut the wound to let it bleed. This is dangerous because it can easily lead the already wounded person to lose too much blood or get infected.
Using fire to heat the wound and applying ice to it should also be avoided.
Instead, when people are bitten by snakes, they should call the medical emergency hotline and move as little as possible.
They should also remember the snake’s features, such as its colour, patterns and head shape, and if possible, take pictures of the reptile so that doctors can use the correct medicine.
Cases involving people being bitten by snakes often captivate social media in China.
In May, a 14-year-old middle school student in southern Guangdong province was bitten by an “unidentified object” in the grassland at his school campus.
He did not think it was serious because he felt no pain at the time and did not see what had attacked him.
It had been some hours later that he told his teacher he might have been bitten by a snake as his limbs felt numb and his vision was blurred.
Doctors who injected him with serum said if the medical treatment had been delayed by just one to two hours, the boy would have stopped breathing.
The recent Yunnan case gained traction online.
“It taught us what is played in TV dramas is sometimes not reliable,” one online observer said.
Another person wrote: “It showed that the wife loves him very much after all.” - South China Morning Post
