As any six-year-old will tell you, there is only one venomous snake native to Britain: Vipera berus, AKA the common European adder. Still, it can give you a nasty bite, and doctors have warned that bite victims are walking into a world of pain by not getting help soon enough.
“I’m astonished by the number of people who know they’ve been bitten but just go home,” says Michael Eddleston, a professor of clinical toxicology at the University of Edinburgh and a snake expert. “Then they wake up with massive swelling, when treatment is far less effective.”
An adder hasn’t killed anyone in Britain for decades, but the effects for the 100 or so people bitten each year – almost always on warm days – can be serious. “I have a photo of a poor 60-year old woman who had to have an adrenaline infusion in the helicopter ambulance after she was bitten on the ankle in the New Forest,” Eddleston says.
Happily, there are simple steps we can take to recover from adder bites – and avoid them in the first place.
1 “Look where you’re walking, especially on warmer areas such as paths, where snakes like to sun themselves,” Eddleston says. “We see them a lot in south Wales, the New Forest, Devon and along the east coast of England. They love beaches, too – we had a lot of bites in dunes last year. And they swim in fresh water. We had a little boy bitten underwater in a park recently.”
2 Adders can grow up to 75cm in length and have a dark zigzag pattern down their backs. “If you see one, stay still and then back off,” Eddleston advises. Like most animals, they only attack humans when they feel threatened.
3 Not all bites leave a clean pair of holes. “Sometimes they slash with one fang. Sometimes they have two pairs of fangs, so you’ll see four marks,” says Eddleston. Almost a third of bites are “dry” – in other words, venom is not transferred – but it can be hard to know whether this was the case. What is Eddleston’s biggest tip? Don’t walk after a bite unless you absolutely must in order to seek help. “Moving around encourages the venom to circulate around the body,” he says.
4 If in doubt, get help straight away. “If you feel unwell or you’re in pain, get someone to take you to hospital,” Eddleston says. “Nobody will blame you and you can be monitored. If there is no swelling or reaction, you’ll be sent home. If there is, usually after a couple of hours, you can receive antivenom straight away and make a full recovery.”
5 Don’t try to treat a bite yourself with creams, tourniquets or anything else. “And don’t try to suck it out,” Eddleston adds. “It doesn’t work.”
