We've now gotten so far down on the list of possible wilderness hazards that those remaining are unlikely to affect most hikers during their entire career. Take snake bite, for example. Depending on who you want to believe, anywhere from 1,000 to 45,000 people are bitten by snakes in the United States every year. Perhaps one-fifth of those bites are from poisonous snakes; however, in about 20 percent of all rattlesnake bites and 30 percent of all cottonmouth and copperhead bites, the snake injects no venom. Estimates of the number of fatal snake bites per year in the United States range from less than a dozen to about 30. Lightning is a bigger cause for worry, as are allergic reactions to bee stings. Only about 20 percent of the snake species found in the United States are poisonous.

Most snakes are afraid of humans and will slither away given half a chance. To avoid surprising one, watch where you walk. Snakes like rocky slopes that catch the morning sun, river bottoms and any kind of cover: rock piles, brush piles, fallen logs. They congregate in their kitchen: any place where rodents, frogs and lizards abound. Look first before stepping over a log. If you're scrambling in likely snake habitat, don't reach up blindly for a hold you can't see. Most of the high alpine areas in the United States are completely free of snakes, as is Alaska.

If you do get bitten, avoid panic. Every year, people die of fright and unnecessary treatment after being bitten by a non-poisonous snake. Even if the snake is poisonous, the chance of its bite killing a healthy adult is small. Toddlers and elderly people are at greater risk. Keep the victim quiet to help retard the spread of the venom and send someone out to get help in evacuating the victim. Clean and bandage the wound. Do not apply ice to the bite or attach a tourniquet above the bite. The result can be a disastrous case of gangrene. Do not try to cut open the area surrounding the puncture marks and suck out the venom by mouth. The risk of serious infection is very high and your incisions can easily damage nerves, tendons and ligaments, particularly if the snake bit a hand or foot. Some authorities recommend snake-bite kits, which contain a razor blade to make incisions and some kind of suction device for extracting venom. While these are better than the cut-and-suck-by-mouth method, the danger of infection and cutting vital structures is still high when these devices are used by inexperienced, panic-stricken hikers. Even the best snake-bite kits claim to remove only 30 percent of the venom, and only that if the device is used within three minutes.

For more information please read these articles from the NIH and the FDA.

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