Follow up: Snakebite

I'm OK but I can count myself as very fucking lucky as a few very fortunate circumstances allowed me to avoid a far more serious fate:

My day started as normal - up at 5h30, an hour's work on The Quiet Front and then off to collect the other workers for my day job as a construction worker in the Swaziland bush. While I was returning, I stopped by another site to drop off a worker who had missed his ride. I pulled over to let a truck past. I then got out to talk to Lance, the contractor at that site and passed some dense bush - I felt nothing and I saw nothing. I started to get light-headed and I got I really bad feeling. I lifted my jeans and saw the bite on my leg and knew I was in deep shit.

I called out to Lance and we jumped straight into his car and burned it to the nearest hospital, 40 minutes drive away. I lay as still as I could but you can feel the poision spreading - I got pins and needles up my leg, it felt like someone had poured molasses into my blood. My mouth dried out. My head spun.

The doctors and nurses at the hospital were incredible. I got all the right shots and was put on a drip to dilute and flush the poison - I went through 4 litres of saline solution.

The luckiest thing was that the snake bit me right on the knee and didn't really get a good enough purchase to inject too much poison. I think I know what snake it was but it's only conjecture - it was pretty big though, the fangs where a full inch apart.

I'm still getting a little light-headed and the occasional head-ache but my leg is fine.

I am alive.

I'm going through to the hospital now to thank the staff for their help.

The Quiet Front will be up and running again from tomorrow.