Man says he’s lucky to be alive after rattlesnake bite

By Candice Nelson
WSLS10 Reporter
Published: May 28, 2008

Ernest and Peggy Marlowe sit on their front porch looking at Peggy’s flower garden. It’s an everyday enjoyment that was threatened early in May. Ernest walked through his farm near their home in Henry County. He said he was looking for mountain laurel for Peggy’s flower bed, but Ernest didn’t know a timber rattlesnake was in the woods where he was walking.

As he bent down to pick up a piece, he noticed something moving, then realized he had a bite on his left index finger.

He told his wife, “A rattlesnake bit me. Reckon we ought to go to the doctor?”

Ernest was quick to suck out the poison, a move doctors don’t recommend.
   
“My tongue started swelling real bad. And I told her, I can’t hardly swallow,” he said.

The venom in his finger also got into his bloodstream. By the time he and Peggy made it to the hospital, he was starting to feel worse.

“I got tingly all over, then I started getting numb,” he said.

After several doses of anti-venom, he was flown to the University of Virginia Medical Center, and Peggy could only pray.

She said, “Lord, don’t take him away, be with him and help him. That’s my soulmate.“

While family prayed, Ernest also had his health to thank after he quit smoking years ago. It was a decision doctors said kept his lungs strong.

Ernest said the doctor told him, “‘ We didn’t tell you yesterday but we normally don’t have a survivor that gets hit in the bloodstream.“

Now, he’s back on the farm and watching his step.
“You gotta live, and that ain’t gonna stop me from living,” he said.

Ten On Your Side also talked to Carilion Roanoke Memorial Hospital for information about anti-venom. Dr. Karen Kuehl says doctors will only use the anti-venom in the most serious cases – those that affect the heart, lungs, cause blood clots, etc.

Dr. Kuehl says the patients who would need this will stay at the hospital for at least 24 hours. She said the medicine that is used today doesn’t cause nearly as many side effects as what was used years ago. However, she said today’s anti-venom is very expensive.

Ten On Your Side also talked to doctors at the Memorial Hospital of Martinsville. They say it’s very hard to keep a lot of the medicine on-hand because anti-venom has a short shelf-life.