All About Snakes

Rob Howard / 30.11.2013

There was no avoiding the issue of snakes at today’s race briefing – as soon as teams entered they were faced with 4 display cases, with one of the most venomous snakes in Costa Rica inside each one. They were a popular attraction, surrounded by racers snapping away with their camera phones, but out in the wilds they may not be so popular!

The reason why was shown on some slides in a talk given by a snake expert to open the briefings.  There were some grim pictures of paralysed victims, and of dead, swollen and bleeding limbs, which combined with the information that bites can be fatal after as little as 8 hours were enough to put the frighteners on everyone listening.

... I am going to stop at this point before telling you more about the snakes.  I’ll skip ahead to a later part of briefing – because I know the loved ones of the racers will be reading this!

This is just to let you know that in the previous 3 Costa Rica Adventure Races the racers have had the same talk, and there have been no snake bite incidents.  The medical team also explained they have staff out on the course and on standby at the hospital in San Jose, where there is a helipad and expert emergency care available. The risk is there, but it’s pretty low.

Back to the snakes. We were told there are 139 species of snake in Costa Rica and 22 are venomous, of which the Vipers and Coral snakes are the ones most likely to be encountered. There followed a lesson on how to identify which snakes are poisonous, and which are not, which all got a bit technical and was later superseded by some pretty obvious advice including;

• Keep a safe distance from snakes
• Treat all snakes as venomous
• Do not put hands into holes

The unpleasant photos came when discussing the two types of venom, Neurotoxic (from corals and sea snakes), which affects the muscles and cardio system, and Hemotoxic vemom (from vipers), which causes strong swelling, pain and bleeding.

Not that it would matter to the unfortunate person bitten, but at least racers now knew the symptoms to look out for, and more practically were told what to do in an emergency.  This was not what you might imagine from Hollywood movies – no tourniquets, no sucking poison out and no applications of medicine. The victim should just be immobilised and kept calm (easier said than done) and the call for evacuation made, either with the phone teams are carrying or by using the emergency button on the tracking device – or probably both!

In the end what it all came down to was a warning to be careful, be sensible and stay safe, and the reassurance that in the very unlikely event of a bite help was on call.

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