The excitement never ends at La Selva.
Rebecca and I have been climbing all week, and spending pretty much all the rest of our time in the lab processing the samples we've taken out of the tree. We've got quite a collection of data building up in an Excel sheet. I'm excited to see what it will tell us.
Even more exciting, and significantly less cool, the first snakebite of our trip occurred last night. Hillary, on the way back to the river station, stepped on a hog-nosed viper slithering across the path. The viper apparently didn't appreciate her foot, and so it bit her. Her sandals did little to protect against the fangs. Aaron caught the snake in her backpack and they rushed to Puerto Viejo, where they were sent to Heredia in the central valley, and finally to a hospital in San Jose. The doctors gave her antivenin and held her overnight before releasing her with some medication: a surprisingly light sentence for a viper bite. The local doc says she has to stay in bed with the leg above her head until the swelling goes down. The swelling, at the moment, shows absolutely no sign of doing anything of the sort. Her foot looks like a bruised boxing glove. It's swollen and bubbly, with snakebite puncture wounds in the side. Quite honestly, it looks disgusting. Everyone has been on high alert since the incident, and bright people now wear nothing but thick rubber boots at night. When Luis Diego, the director of this station, spoke with Hillary upon her return, he ended the conversation with a very clear question...
"You were very lucky," he intoned. "So, from now on you'll wear appropriate footwear, hmm?"
"Oh yes! Boots! Always boots!" Hillary, swollen foot hovering above the ground, spouted the word like a mantra.
"Good," said Luis Diego. Then he walked away and left her hanging on her crutches.
For reference, here's a photo of a closely related, more dangerous relative of the hog-nosed viper. This eyelash viper has more potent poison and is much harder to see than the hog-nosed. Also, eyelash vipers like to hang out right around face level in the forest understory. The yellow ones like this one especially enjoy lurking in clusters of fruits of the same color. I'm on the lookout everywhere. I can't imagine a viper bite to the face would be very pleasant.
Rebecca and I have been climbing all week, and spending pretty much all the rest of our time in the lab processing the samples we've taken out of the tree. We've got quite a collection of data building up in an Excel sheet. I'm excited to see what it will tell us.
Even more exciting, and significantly less cool, the first snakebite of our trip occurred last night. Hillary, on the way back to the river station, stepped on a hog-nosed viper slithering across the path. The viper apparently didn't appreciate her foot, and so it bit her. Her sandals did little to protect against the fangs. Aaron caught the snake in her backpack and they rushed to Puerto Viejo, where they were sent to Heredia in the central valley, and finally to a hospital in San Jose. The doctors gave her antivenin and held her overnight before releasing her with some medication: a surprisingly light sentence for a viper bite. The local doc says she has to stay in bed with the leg above her head until the swelling goes down. The swelling, at the moment, shows absolutely no sign of doing anything of the sort. Her foot looks like a bruised boxing glove. It's swollen and bubbly, with snakebite puncture wounds in the side. Quite honestly, it looks disgusting. Everyone has been on high alert since the incident, and bright people now wear nothing but thick rubber boots at night. When Luis Diego, the director of this station, spoke with Hillary upon her return, he ended the conversation with a very clear question...
"You were very lucky," he intoned. "So, from now on you'll wear appropriate footwear, hmm?"
"Oh yes! Boots! Always boots!" Hillary, swollen foot hovering above the ground, spouted the word like a mantra.
"Good," said Luis Diego. Then he walked away and left her hanging on her crutches.
posted by cody @ 9:53 PM
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