First Aid treatment:
First aid treatment is carried out immediately after the bite and before the patient reaches a hospital. It can be performed by the snake bite victim or by anyone else who is present. Most of the traditional first aid methods have proved to be dangerous and should be discouraged as they do more harm than good!
DOs
- Reassure the victim who may be very anxious,
- Immobilize the bitten limb with a splint or sling (any movement or muscular contraction increases absorption of venom into the bloodstream, apply light bandage over the bite site and consider
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pressure-immobilization for some serious bites by neurotoxic snakes, such as sea snakes.
Donts
- Don’t interfere with the bite wound as this may introduce infection and increase absorption of the venom into the blood stream and local bleeding.
- Don’t make local incisions or pricks/punctures at the site of the bite or in the bitten limb
- Don’t attempt to suck the venom out of the wound
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- Don’t apply ice packs, herbs, chemicals or tight tourniquets/bands around the limb, this is extremely painful and dangerous and if the tight tourniquet was left on for too long more than 40 minutes the affected limb might be damaged due to inadequate blood supply, many gangrenous limbs resulted from this practice
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