I’ve been bitten by a horse, snake (twice, years apart), cat, red back spider, dog (twice, weeks apart). What’s your count?
A cat.
The neighbor’s cat managed to get through the screen window into our bedroom, but couldn’t get out again. And because I wasn’t thinking, I picked it up and decided to carry it downstairs. That was a mistake. It bit my hand, wrist and forearm, and scratched basically everywhere else. The bites were bleeding a LOT, especially the one on my wrist. And of course I had to get antibiotics and a tetanus shot, which meant that only were the bites hurting, I was nauseous for two weeks too.
Also a snake once. My partner made me go to the doctor, who said “yep, that’s a snake bite. Call me if it’s not getting better”.
Finally spotted some vipers in my area so I started researching what to do if bitten. Basically, clean it up and “Call me if it’s not getting better.” Still, I’m wearing my combat boots every time I’m in the wild from now on.
A “friendly little pit bull”. I was walking down a sidewalk in an urban area when I passed by it and its owner and it decided I was snack time. The small woman owner couldn’t control it and when I was able to get it off I luckily could run inside a building. Two good Samaritans who saw the attack followed the woman to her home and called the police to tell them where she was.
I initially told the owner cover my hospital bills and rehab and let’s call it a day. Instead she tried to blame me because I looked “intimidating” to her dog (what she told police). Luckily the good Samaritans provided a statement to police stating they just saw me walking down the street like every other person.
I was out thousands in medical bills and lost workdays and she wouldn’t pay so I sued her and she dodged process servers so we got a judge to file a bench warrant for her arrest. That got her to court real quick and instead of paying $5k in medical bills she ended up posting me $110k, some was covered by her policy but she was still out of pocket $35k according to the discussions my lawyer had with her lawyer and insurance company
Hot damn. So she had the money, she just didn’t want to pay, didn’t get a shred of remorse about you after the attack?
Tried to blame me, lawyer got testimony from cops, witnesses, and animal control. The animal control report was very damming for her. The officer talked about how after he came in to her home he had to go back outside because he feared for his safety, too. My lawyer as well as getting the warrant also got the go ahead from the judge to start the process to put a lien on her house, which apparently is very rare, so the testimonies of other people and her dodging being served must have really pissed of the judge.
I’m sorry for you having to endure the whole ordeal but 110k serves her right then. I hope that covered all the losses, did you get to use any of that money for something wholesome or just bills?
Paid a bunch of medical bills put the rest in an investment count and haven’t touched it since, even for emergencies.
A big darn dragonfly. It took quite a large chunk out of my arm, and it ended up badly infected in no time
Thanks for this. New fear unlocked
That was in Crete, I don’t know why it attacked but I still have a mark where it got me. It just randomly landed on my arm. It was almost as long as my arm, and I showed my little brother.
Look at this thing, that shouldn’t be there
And then I yeeted it off of my with a slap. It took quite a punch and did not follow after that.
Dunno know about Cretan dragons, but I’ve never even heard of someone getting bit in the South (US). I’m around them all time.
I had no idea they would/could bite humans. Think you could share a link to the species or something?
Think one nipped me as a child, but I’m around them all the time and never heard of anyone getting bit. We get some absolute units down here!
Would you like to know more?
That was an excellent writeup, thanks for sharing
Best I can do is ask my grandma if she caught a glimpse of it. I was 14 back then
Did you ask her? Lol
Just called her, she does not know either. But she did confirm that it was on Crete
A tick
Edit for whole story:
Didn’t even notice the bite, but about 2 weeks after a hiking trip, I noticed a red rash on the side of my lower leg.
I waited for it to go away on its own but it didn’t.
It grew into a 10 inch by 5 inch bright red patch that itched, felt like rice paper and hurt to the touch.
The edge around it turned a different color every day.So one morning, my girlfriend at the time had enough and basically forced me to seek medical help.
Problem was, it was a Sunday, and the doctors in my area were currently on strike.
So I rode the bus to the hospital, and had a bit of a surreal experience there.
(I was running a high fever by now, so my recollection is to be taken with a grain of salt)I distinctly remember walking into the emergency room of the hospital through the entrance for ambulances, cause all other doors were closed.
At some point I was standing in a back room of sorts, no other patients around, and 3 doctors who were on strike curiously looked at my leg.They assessed that it’s definitely a burn wound. I vehemently disagreed.
So one of them wrote a prescription for a wide-band antibiotic, based on guessing.I went to the nearest emergency pharmacy, collected the meds, took them and 3 days later the rash was gone and the skin began to heal.
Horror story time:
As a child, my cousin liked to play in a small, wooded area close to his garden and one day, a long time ago, he must have had a tick. He didn’t notice it, nobody noticed anything strange and years (10+ years) later he got problems with rheumatic attacks and arthritis. Doctors were stumped as an adolescent shouldn’t present with this. They checked genetic factors which were negative and treated the symptoms. It got worse and worse over the years, many visits to many doctors and specialists, they all had no idea what the cause of his problems were.
2 years ago (he is 38 now), he got a new knee joint and this year, he had to get a hip replacement because the arthritis. On a whim, a doctor did some tests and found that he has long-term Lyme borreliosis, likely from a tick, but never presented with the more common symptoms and had an unusually long onset time for the long-term effects of the untreated disease.
All of his problems could have been prevented with a few doses of antibiotics.
Well?! Gonna just leave us hanging?
edited my comment
A scorpion. It stung me between my toes and it was not a big one but hurt pretty bad. I went to the emergency and what scared me more than the sting was the nurse’s insisting on injecting the antidote right where the little guy had u stung. The pain subsided in an hour or so but it felt like I had a bad case of pins and needles on that for for the next few days, incessantly.
Oh God, I can’t imagine needing to use a needle right where you were stung already. I’d blanche if I were told that too.
Cat. My pet cat. It wasn’t her fault, the window was open on the sill she was sitting on and abruptly closed on its own, on her paw.
So she understandably freaked out. When I ran to open it, she bit me on the finger.
Long story short, I went to a couple of Urgent Care centers before the ER. My mom had been told that I was allergic to penicillin when I was a child, so I told the medical staff this. After a couple of days, whatever else they were giving me wasn’t working and I woke up with red streaks going up my arm and my finger swollen to over twice its size.
Went to the ER. They said if I didn’t have penicillin, I could lose my finger. They also said it was common back in the day to mistake a certain reaction to it as being allergic, so maybe I wasn’t allergic. But they monitored me closely just in case.
Penicillin FTW. Not allergic. Spent 2 days in the hospital getting a constant IV drip of this modern medicinal miracle. Still have all 8 fingers and 2 thumbs.
Thought I was allergic my whole damned life from a childhood incident in '76. Had a long talk with the CVS doc one day. We really hit it off and shot the shit for almost an hour.
He told me the same! When I related getting hives when I tried penicillin later in life he told me that mono is often mistaken for strep throat, and yes, treating it with penicillin often results in hives.
I’m going to quit telling doctors I’m allergic.
BTW, just imagine how we could all benefit from being able to chat with a doctor for an hour now and again! Also, he knew I had just lost my job and my insurance wasn’t working. He gave me two antibiotic prescriptions for future use, even though I didn’t need it at the time. Also fudged the insurance paperwork to make it look like a software issue so I could just pay later.
What an awesome doc! Good to know folks like that exist :)
DON’T keep that information to yourself.
Mention that there may be an allergic reaction to something but don’t hide anything from your health care workers… (facepalm)
Penicillin saved my leg. Nothing bit me, I just kept scratching a wound because it was itchy.
Nearly 20 years ago I was on a meeting when one of my coworkers suddenly jumps back, takes off his shoe and throws it in the middle of the room, with a scared face. Everybody looks at the shoe and out of it comes crawling a spider. At this moment the boss walks into the room and notices the spider too and says: “woah, careful, that spider is extremely venomous”. The other guy then looks even more terrified.
Boss takes him to the hospital and he took the antidote within like 15 minutes from being bitten, so no big deal at the end of the day, just the story of how he was wearing a shoe with a spider in it for over an hour before it bit him. We were all laughing and cracking jokes in the afternoon but the guy was just relieved about no longer feeling the pain from it.
I have no idea what spider it was, but this happened on a small town in the Atlantic forest region of southern Brazil. My guess would be that it was a Brazilian Wandering Spider (the spider famous for giving painful long lasting erections).
Having lived in a few many venomous-spider rich areas, I bang my shoes together while holding them upside down to prevent this. Only had a spider come tumbling out once but that reassures me that it does the trick.
My guess would be that it was a Brazilian Wandering Spider (the spider famous for giving painful long lasting erections).
If that was the case there would have been a pretty obvious clue, no? lol
(not doubting you, just making a silly joke)
Sorry, Bob. Doc said you’re gonna die.
Had half my face ripped off my a dog when I was a kid. Doctors put me back together incredibly well and people can’t tell anything happened. I got super lucky. I almost lost my right eye and could have been super disfigured if one of the best pediatric plastic surgeons hadn’t happened to be in town that day.
Worst part was spending the entire summer inside and not being allowed to do many fun things. Got bit right as summer vacation started. I had a prosthetic tearduct until mine grew back and I had to be extra careful because it could come out easily. I also had a gazillion stitches.
Holy shit. Did you pick up kayak launching that same summer?
I wish lol.
Never. Weird you keep getting bit.
Slow learner.
This did not end up in the ER but is a bit of a funny tale. When I was very young I got bit by a gerbil on my finger but it must of hit something somewhat significant as the blood was spurting. I wrapped a kitchen towel around it and wen to my brother who upon seeing the kitchen towel wrapped around my finger and hand for what I explained was a gerbil bite immediately started making fun of me. Oh did you get mauled by the mighty gerbil or such. Anyway he then unwound the towel and was like. holy shit. and wrapped it back up. He got it tightly wrapped with a real bandage and gauze and such that it slowed the bleeding down so that after a few hours and a rewrap it was no bleeding passed the bandage anymore.
Ha! I’ve been bitten by rodents a time or three and never had a spurting wound! Little dude must have been infected with rage.
A friend of mine had a partner accidentally draw blood when he (consensually) bit them. It got infected and they needed quite serious hospital care. I suppose that counts.
My savage ex-girlfriend and one crazy neighbors kid.
I’m sure this is two separate stories but please tell it like it was one. Extra style points for the two biting each other.
I’m not sure how it works in every state, but in mine rabies testing is covered by the state but kind of requires a doctor visit, (and the animal to be tested) to get the ball rolling. I think you could also go straight to the sheriff. All of that to say i went to the ER for a minor bat bite, and to make my PSA statement that if there is even a sliver of possibility that rabies is possible, don’t ever assume that a minor animal bite is no big deal.
Got bit fishing a mouse out of the trash can at our wedding. When I sobered up the next morning I was seriously sweating about rabies.
Turns out mice don’t carry it, or at least have never infected a human. Plus, despite all the woods around here, rabies is very rare in this county.
It is rare, but not something to completely ignore as a possibility
Damn homes, animals really don’t like you huh?
They don’t like his cologne, eau de universal rage pheromones.
Where my snake bitees at?
Was biking/exploring in the woods and got bit on the ankle by what I later figured out was a copperhead. Couldn’t bike to the ER so I had to bike to the edge of the woods and meet the ambalance there.
Copperhead venom digests/destroys tissue, but the antivenom can kill you since it’s made from horse blood and you could be addicted, so they gave me 10 bags over the course of the night and stuck me in the ICU just in case. The person in the room next to me ended up dying from whatever they were there for. At this point my foot had swelled up like an exam glove you blew into to make a balloon. But it started going down after the 5th bag of antivenin. Which felt like ice in my veins.
The next morning basically I was good to go, but it was expensive. I was a teenager but my mom had to fight the insurance company to get them to pay which was the real horror story of all this.
