Myth #1: Should I Suck the Poison Out?
Over decades of tall tales and movies, we’ve all come to know the old cowboy trick to treat a rattlesnake bite. This crude procedure, once recommended by wilderness survival organizations, could be described as the “Cut and Suck” method.
The concept is rather simple, make small incisions across the fang marks and then suck the venom out of the wound manually with your mouth. Somehow, this method makes perfect sense to our human logic. If the bite victim happens to be someone you’re attracted to, it may make even more sense to you.
While this method does potentially expose the “sucker” (pun intended) to ingesting dangerous snake venom orally, which could lead to very serious illness, the even greater problems is that this method is completely ineffective. It may even make the damage to the bite area worse.
So, best case scenario, your bite victim still needs urgent medical attention and now you’ve cut them and sucked their blood.
Worst case, you may have made the venom’s “ground zero” bigger and more infected. Plus, you may have ingested some poison, which means you may soon need some medical attention of your own.