Snake burn
Last Tuesday I did something I’ve done dozens of times – I picked up a garter snake dozing in the sun. But this time something happened to me that had never happened before – I got burned.
Not right away. Let me explain.
The snake – an adolescent – must have been sleeping. I clearly startled it and for the first time I smelled “snake smell,” and I immediately thought of the John Prine song, “Paradise.”
Well sometimes we’d travel right down the Green River
To the abandoned old prison down by Adrie Hill
Where the air smelled like snakes and we’d shoot with our pistols
But empty pop bottles was all we would kill.
It was a foul, musky odor. I’d never really smelled anything like it before but the closest thing I could compare it to was the horrid, rotten-potato smell of a stink bug.
There was quite a lot of the secretion – it nearly puffed out of the snake and foamed as it hit the air. The oily substance instantly followed the form of the snake as it wrapped its body around my wrist. Soon both of my hands were covered with it.
Of course, this was when my Blackberry decided to slip out of my pocket and onto the ground.
I took the snake out of my path, letting him loose in the tall grass near the ditch and tried to pick up my phone without getting snake juice on it. The juice had actually turned into a greasy powder-like substance that reeked horribly.
I washed my hands when I got to the house. I first blasted them with the hose outside then used the antibacterial liquid soap we keep in the kitchen.
I didn’t really notice the burning feeling until I woke the next morning. My hand felt swollen and hot – but not so much on the surface as on the inside and the joints especially.
I researched garter snake secretions online and found nothing more than mentions of a “foul smelling secretion” from a gland near the snake’s anus.
After waking the second day – this time with the hand clearly swollen (not a lot) and the skin becoming dry and flaky – like an acetone burn – I decided to rephrase my garter snake searches to include the word “volatile” and “secretion.”
I found a scientific journal article about the “Volatile components in scent gland secretions of garter snakes (Thamnophis spp.)” I didn’t have the $34 to spend on the journal but a look at the names of some of the compounds tells me, I’ve been chemically burned, with my limited knowledge of chemistry. It’s a somewhat unusual encounter, according to local lore, but something scientists are aware of.
My hand *still* burns. The knuckles are becoming cracked. The right hand more than the left, feels like a very bad arthritis attack, but heat and hot water only makes it burn more.
I may never touch a snake ever again.
I keep thinking about what it means.
In myth and in symbolism, snakes stand for knowledge, for healing, for our human “chi” energy, and sexual prowess. Getting what amounts to a chemical burn from what is an essentially harmless snake species is certainly puzzling.
April 26, 2009 at 8:16 pm
I love to pick up snakes. You have to be careful not to let ‘em poop on you, as it is just like you describe. I have to admit your experience goes far beyond anything I ever noticed, though.
In MD there were frequent visits from BIG blacksnakes. I regarded it as some kind of personal test to always pick them up and hold them until they calmed down, then let them loose. They’ll make a stinky mess too, if you let ‘em. But I wouldnt ever stop picking up snakes if I were you.