re: Snake Stories: Too Close for Comfort Edition

Sr. year of highschool. Shooting some hoops with my bro-in-law at their house at about 9:30pm. He shoots a brick and the ball rolls in a gap between the lattice work, under their house. He tells me to go get the ball. For some reason I did. I crawl up under the house feeling around in the dark for the ball. My hand finds a mud puddle. I feel a big thump on my elbow. I thought a frog or something had jumped into my arm. I crawl a little further, find the ball then back out. We went back to shooting ball. After a minute or two my elbow is feeling weird, I look down and see 2 holes with blood trickling out and it swelling like a mofo. He throws me in his trucks and takes me to the ER. By the time I get there my elbow is the size of a football. The ER really wanted to know what kind of snake it was before they did anything. So bro-in-law calls a local "snake catcher" who goes out there, crawls under the house and kills a ~3' cotton mouth. It was laying where their A/C dripped down (the water puddle I felt). He said I had crawled right on top of it. The hospital pumps me full of antibiotics but no anti-venom. Apparently the worst part of a cotton mouth bite is the bacteria the nasty bastards got living in there mouth. I got sick as hell and had one fatass arm for about a week