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Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
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shorty63136
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
When grandma says she's gonna wring your little neck, goddamit, believe her!
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YankBoffin
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
Yeah, snakes don't just crawl up and bite people. They bite if threatened or provoked. I'm glad the old lady is recovering, but there's more to this story.
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Katxyz
08/13/09

@YankBoffin:

Snakes feel threatened or provoked easily though. My friend was bit by a rattlesnake because she stepped too close to it (it was under some leaves) at dusk. She might have just startled it.
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redqueenmeg
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
My mom killed a bigger rattlesnake running it over with the stroller my nephew was in.

I rescued a snake (nonpoisonous) from the community pool yesterday. The rest of the moms were all screaming and jumping on chairs. SIGH. They also seemed even MORE afraid of the frog I fished out a couple minutes later. The screaming was just amazing.
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AboutToLaugh is longwinded
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
My great-grandmother taught me to never underestimate the toughness of older women. She had to basically take care of herself as a teenager after her was mother lynched in Louisiana, and she lived through the Jim Crow era in the Deep South, so I think that gave her the fortitude to do things that the rest of our family was too wimpy to do at times. She also had a daily dip of snuff, drank Old Milwaukee beer, and lived to be 91 years old. I hope to be as tough as her when I grow up.

I could totally see my great-grandmother doing something like this, and then cussing at the snake for making her have to kill it.
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amy_b
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
Ridiculous. These snakes are tiny. Chances are it bit her BECAUSE she was strangling it.
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whynotshesaid
08/13/09

@amy_b: Small but poisonous. A dude's arm went entirely numb after he was bit by one, and that was two years ago.
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mysterygirl
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
I thought that Neville Longbottom already took care of that Horcrux. Redundant.
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lollapulizer
08/13/09

@mysterygirl: hearted for that!
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trixavicious
08/13/09

@mysterygirl: Perfect!
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girlnamedblue
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
At least it was a manageable size. My only interaction with a snake was at the zoo for a photo op. I was nervous and holding it a little too tightly, so it began to wrap itself around me, I began to panic and the attendant rushed over to help. Ah, childhood memories.
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Gretchen is a new kitten mom!
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
Now this makes that "My grandma is so tough she can tell the cop who pulled her over to fuck off without even taking the Marlboro out of her mouth or puttin' down her beer" thing to a whole new level.
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Gretchen is a new kitten mom!
08/13/09

@Gretchen is a new kitten mom!: Not that my grandma did that or anything.... Maybe an aunt, but not my granny.
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labeled
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
Also, seven inches? ACK - I hate, hate, HATE small rattlesnakes more than BIG ones. Gives me Riki Tiki Tavi flashbacks or something.
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EkaterinaBallerina
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
My cousin's grandmother used to have snakes under the porch of her house. My aunt told us that once, when everyone was sitting on the porch, they saw my cousin, who was then about three, walk around the front of the house carrying a plastic shovel muttering "I'm gonna kill him. I'm gonna kill him." They followed her to find she was attempting to kill a snake with a plastic shovel. Thankfully they caught her in time.
This story, however, reminds me of something our grandmother would have done. She once reached into my uncle's mouth to pull out a bee that had flown in. She's pretty tough.
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KLondike5
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
Something tells me a woman of Esther's generation is more likely to be willing and able to strangle a rattlesnake than someone raised in a more coddled environment. The elders of my family have dispatched some critters in their time. Later generations, not so much.
Just sayin'
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greeneyedfem
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
That's pretty bad-ass.
If a rattler crawled up me and bit my hand, my first priority would not be wreaking swift and terrible vengeance upon the snake, but would be more GETTING AWAY GETTING AWAY OH GOD GET AWAY AWAY AWAY AAAAAHMOMMMY!!
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Skellatrix
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
Aww, they started that article meme-ishly:
An 87-year-old Tampa woman had had it with the mother-loving snakes on her mother-loving porch.
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BeckySharper
08/13/09

@Skellatrix: Okay, that's awesome.
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labeled
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
I hope she'll be okay. Contrary to popular belief, getting anti-venin isn't any guarantee that she won't suffer major effects. (My daughter was bitten by a western dmdback a few years ago, but I don't know if it's stronger than pygmy rattlesnake venom.) Not nearly as dramatic, my husband killed the fucker with a shovel right before we left for the hospital.
ETA: She was released from the Burn ICU into a "Step Down Unit" (the burn unit therapy section) exactly 5 years ago today, come to think of it.
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Edited by labeled at 08/13/09 10:53 AM labeled was starred labeled was unstarred

cocobanal
08/13/09

@labeled: I would imagine western diamondback anti-venin is much stronger than pygmy rattler anti-venin. Pygmy rattlers are poisonous, but much less so than "regular" rattlers.
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xay
08/13/09

@labeled: As I was recently informed, pygmy rattlesnake venom would make an adult ill and kill a child. I'm not sure if it would be more likely to kill an elderly person.
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BeckySharper
08/13/09

@labeled: It sounds like the snake was small and probably juvenile, so hopefully she'll be okay. Also, the pygmy type prey on smaller critters like mice, so they're less venemous.
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labeled
08/13/09

@xay: I wondered, because of their size, if they're like baby diamondbacks - which tend to give a full "dose" of venom with every bite, whereas "most" diamondback bites are "dry." (Warning shots, if you will.)
In my (well, daughter's) experience, the biggest dangers of a full hit, even with swift anti-venin dosage, are the damage that can be done to the bitten area, of course - diamondback venom is a doubleshot of nastiness - it's hematotoxic and necrotic (meaning it thins the blood to speed the tissue damage by the necrotic agent, causing swelling so severe that the muscle/skin tissue is often cut in a zig-zag pattern called a fasciotomy - compartment syndrome causes such severe swelling that it cuts off all circulation). From there, even after anti-venin, the venom continues to work through the body, and in my daughter's case, almost caused kidney failure as it circulated through. (We say she's the luckiest unlucky little girl ever - she was 7 at the time, such a toughie. She was bitten on the calf with a full-shot, and her leg was *black from bruising from her toes all the way up to her kidney. Her leg was swollen two double size - all the way up and down, but luckily she didn't have compartment syndrome - just intense pain. Honestly, I thought she'd be 'fine' after getting the anti-venin - I had NO idea.)
Anyway, sorry for the unintended science, anatomy and Labeled's Daughter lesson. It's a subject I can't shut myself up about when it comes up.
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Sputnik_Sweetheart
08/13/09

In reply to Grandmother Kills Snake With Her Bare Hands
Those death panels better watch out for Esther. She'll break the doctor's arm that tries to euthanize her.
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