The Snakebite That Was,nt.

[ozzydom]

Last evening I had the unfortunate opportunity to witness the ignorance of rural Thais in action.

Now you would think that rural living Thai farmers would have knowledge of venomous snakes and the treatment of snake bites , not so and let me tell you of the events of last evening to make the point.

Just after dark the T/W was summoned to our gate by her step sister with her 4 year old grand-son whom she cares for.

It transpired that the boy had claimed he was bitten by a snake while he was laying in his room , no snake was evident so she made the lad walk the 400 metres to our house(as if T/W would know what to do ).for her advise.

The lad claimed that the snake bit him on his right foot , so I grabbed my roll of 3 inch elastic bandage I keep for such emergencies and had a close look for the puncture marks.

Well ,apart from mozzie bites and the usual array of scratches etc that a boy in a village picks ,running around barefoot, I could find no sign of puncture marks, so I suggested that I bind his leg and we take him to the hospital about 5 km distance.

This was met with the "why wrap up ,he not bleeding" response.

At this time the pantomine started , the bush telegraph had summoned relatives from near and far and they arrived enmass.

There were uncles ,aunts,cousins, the village drunk ,the village witchdoctor etc in attendance by this time and bear in mind that the supposed bite occurred at least 30 minutes prior.

I told T/W that we should get the boy to hospital in my pick up and that there was no obvious puncture marks, but better sure than sorry.,but the gathering throng was in no mood to let commonsense prevail.

So ,everybody took turns to search for the fang marks which included picking at the mozzie bites with their dirty fingernails until each bite was bleeding ,then they would say " there is two marks that might be a bite" , lastly the witch doctor started muttering incantations while waving what was supposed to be a piece of human bone over the leg and finally spat his saliva all over the leg.

Well ,sorry to admit ,but at this point I lost the plot and screamed at them all that they were a bunch neanderthals and to *&@# off out my gate.

I took the lad to the hospital poste haste where the on duty "doctor" had a quick look and could not find any evidence of a bite but admitted him for observation ..I picked them up this morning , he was all chirpy because he had been given an icecream.for being a brave lad.

So alls well that ends well, but it probably wont be if the in laws wake up to what I called them all.

[cooked]

You did good. Very difficult sometimes but the crazy rich Farang, in the end, is expected to know what to do. The place where stuff goes down in my village is just in front of our gates and a few times I have walked down there and things have gone quiet, no idea why, I don't rant or anything. I do have a hard working and honest family behind me.

[loong]

You did good. Very difficult sometimes but the crazy rich Farang, in the end, is expected to know what to do. The place where stuff goes down in my village is just in front of our gates and a few times I have walked down there and things have gone quiet, no idea why, I don't rant or anything. I do have a hard working and honest family behind me.

Well, that's totally different to my experience.

Most Thai villagers think that the crazy rich farang knows absolutely nothing!

Sometimes I think that they consider all farangs to be stupid, many farangs do nothing all day but drink beer and watch TV. Yet all farangs are rich.

The more perceptive villagers have realised that by being stupid, doing nothing but drink beer all day and watching TV is the way to get rich

[ozzydom]

You did good. Very difficult sometimes but the crazy rich Farang, in the end, is expected to know what to do. The place where stuff goes down in my village is just in front of our gates and a few times I have walked down there and things have gone quiet, no idea why, I don't rant or anything. I do have a hard working and honest family behind me.

Well, that's totally different to my experience.

Most Thai villagers think that the crazy rich farang knows absolutely nothing!

Sometimes I think that they consider all farangs to be stupid, many farangs do nothing all day but drink beer and watch TV. Yet all farangs are rich.

The more perceptive villagers have realised that by being stupid, doing nothing but drink beer all day and watching TV is the way to get rich

I must be a poor role model for them then,at 74 and a non drinker and still working 10 hours a day.

[David48]

ozzydom ... good story, well told.

Made me smile ... and ...

[Bluetongue]

I've had various snake experiences here, usually someone calls snake and the crowd gathers. When the Khamen were here building my house I found one in the garage and they came a running, dinner. Usually cobra's are taken up the road to our neighbour he likes to eat them. One of my favourite dogs got a spray in the eye from the last one a 6 footer in an irrigation pipe I left lying around. TW'S ministrations fixed that in a day or so. I've had two stuck in the chicken wire in my back fence came in for a meal but with meal onboard couldn't squeeze back out I suppose.

Sounds like it was a small snake maybe it just struck at him but didn't actually bite.

Mate, I think you'll be right with the Neanderthal comment, not much chance of a translation there. My family do know the f word though and it usually gets results.

[loong]

One of my snake experiences.

A cobra was spotted and it went behind a water tank.

As Bluetongue has mentioned, they yell snake and everyone comes running to look.

So, this bloke goes and gets his gun and is peering in on one side of the tank, trying to spot the cobra and get a shot.

A group gathered the other side of the tank to watch the action.

I pointed out that if he fired the gun, one of them will almost certainly get shot.

It was quite funny, the way they looked at me, with their heads moving back and their eyebrows furrowed. Then realisation kicked in and they scurried out of the way.

[h90]

we had several times a snake (in Bangkok) all my staff come from outside and I asked them if it has poison and I got answers ranging from:

no poison at all

to

yes but don't kill you only hurt

to

yes absolute deadly

and everyone told that he/she recognize it.

Twice I had to treat my sister in law with antibiotics because it was almost a sepsis and she refused to go to a different doctor than the 30 Baht hospital which had no antibiotics....

[h90]

One of my snake experiences.

A cobra was spotted and it went behind a water tank.

As Bluetongue has mentioned, they yell snake and everyone comes running to look.

So, this bloke goes and gets his gun and is peering in on one side of the tank, trying to spot the cobra and get a shot.

A group gathered the other side of the tank to watch the action.

I pointed out that if he fired the gun, one of them will almost certainly get shot.

It was quite funny, the way they looked at me, with their heads moving back and their eyebrows furrowed. Then realisation kicked in and they scurried out of the way.

We have one staff, former military and maybe former narcotics user...he is extreme slim and almost looks like a snake himself.

Have a snake tell him....he catches every snake with just his hands without being afraid and carries it away.

My wife doesn't like geckos, he also catches them easily from the wall without hurting them and carries them out.

In the office they call him "dschinglan" which means something like lizard, and he actually likes the name which should be an insult for everyone else.....