Snake Bite! - a man survives being bitten by a poisonous snake

Golf Digest, July, 1999

After a near-fatal mistake, a prominent instructor offers a lesson that could save your life

The bite of a poisonous coral snake doesn't hurt. It's like being pricked with a needle. But when the poison reaches your central nervous system, the pain is awful. You feel as if you're dying, which is the case in some instances. I was bitten on a golf course in Florida last summer, so I know. After barely escaping with my life, I'm still recovering. Perhaps my story will serve as a warning to other golfers.

I thought I knew snakes. As a boy I hunted, raised and sold all kinds of snakes around my home in Fort Lau-derdale, Fla. I was in business with my boyhood chum, Rick Worsham (son of 1947 U.S. Open champion Lew Worsham). At times we'd have more than 100 snakes of all kinds-corn snakes, rat snakes, garter snakes, brown and banded water snakes, indigo snakes and other varieties-in cages at my home.

We fed them minnows, tadpoles, frogs or deformed chickens we bought for a nickel apiece. We caught only three poisonous snakes in all that time-two pygmy rattlesnakes and an eastern diamondback rattlesnake-which we quickly traded for corn snakes at the Florida Gator Farm west of town. When it came to water moccasins, coral snakes, copperheads, rattlers and other poisonous varieties, we didn't fool with them. So in September of last year, when I saw a foursome of women causing a big commotion over a snake they'd surrounded on the first fairway at the Country Club of Ocala, I had no worries about removing the snake for them. I hopped in a cart at the practice range, where I was giving a lesson, and drove over to help. With me was Carlos Lorrain (a pro from Venezuela who was next in line for a lesson) and my friends Jim and Kathy Roach.

The snake was big, about 30 inches long, with colored bands from tip to tail. To me it looked like a harmless scarlet king snake, simply because of its large size. Coral snakes typically are only 20 or so inches long. Thirty inches for a coral snake is enormous. I wish I had taken note of its shiny, jet-black head, the signature of the coral snake. I also wish I had thought of the old saying familiar to people from these parts: "Red and black, friend of Jack. Red and yellow, kill a fellow." The sequence of the bands definitely was yellow-red- yellow-black.

The women were frightened and agitated. They wanted me to kill the snake either by clubbing it with a sand wedge or driving over it with one of the carts. "Wait a minute," I said. "This snake isn't hurting anyone. Let's just put it back where it came from." Big mistake.

The way you catch a snake is to first throw a towel over it. That tends to disorient the snake, and it can't see you. Then you seize it just below the head with one hand while grabbing the tail end with your other hand. That's what I did, but the snake squirmed and I dropped it-twice. On the third try, he poked his head out from under the towel and quickly bit me just below the second knuckle on the index finger of my right hand.

I had been bitten maybe 30 times over the years. Like I said, it doesn't hurt. And it's fast-the snake latched on for two seconds, then let go. This time Jim Roach picked up the snake and asked me, "What should I do with him?" For a moment, I considered taking the snake home as a gift to my 7-year-old son, John Morgan-a thought that makes me sick when I consider the possibilities. For some reason, I told Jim to turn the snake loose at the edge of some trees near the fairway. Jim did, and that was it. We told the women goodbye, then went back to the practice tee and finished the lesson. Then Carlos and I went out to play. We teed off on the back nine and had a very good match going until we reached the 14th hole, a par 4. There I did some-thing I never do: I hit a big duck hook into the woods and almost fell down. I couldn't understand it; it was as though I'd lost control of my body. Then, as I walked off the tee, I suddenly got violently ill. I also became dizzy, hot and flushed. Carlos looked at me. "The playing lesson is over," he said. "We're going in."

When we got to the clubhouse, the staff immediately called an ambulance. They also phoned my wife, Mary Beth. When the paramedics arrived, they wanted to know all about the snake that had bitten me. They went so far as to ask Carlos

to go back out on the course and find the snake. I told them all I could, then they whisked me to the hospital in Ocala. When the doctors observed my condition and symptoms, they felt sure the snake that had bitten me was a coral snake. My finger felt cold and leathery where the snake had bitten it. The bite of a coral snake can be deadly, so they immediately asked Mary Beth an important question: Should they administer the antivenin? It was crucial, because if I turned out to be allergic to the anti-venin, that could kill me, too. Mary Beth was hysterical but eventually consented to their giving me the antivenin.

They injected me with five vials of antivenin, and I felt better immediately. But a short time later I started convulsing on the table, my body bucking wildly. I felt as though I were levitating. I also felt cold, and a nurse covered me with blankets. I quickly felt much better, but strangely peaceful and detached. I called Mary Beth over and told her I loved her and asked her to tell my two children I loved them.