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Darwin Awards
2010 Slush Pile

This item was recently submitted by a reader.
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Vote to tell me what *you* think!

When at First You Don't Succeed

2010 Reader Submission
Pending Acceptance

I swear I don't make this stuff up. Last week I got two copies of Countdown to Extinction from Amazon because you chose to print "If The Cure Didn't Kill Her." Today, 11/15/2010, I'm back on duty in Ojai Hospital's Emergency Room when a serious case comes in: A 24-year-old woman carrying a 20-week pregnancy has been bitten on her left foot by a Black Widow spider. She brings in a wriggling, average size genuine Black Widow, plucked from her sandal, in a ziplock bag as proof. Her description of the pinprick bite and subsequent cramping ache proximal in her left thigh is convincing history of a real envenomation. Now I've treated much more symptomatic victims, and we carry Black Widow antivenin at ready in the pharmacy, but what really complicates matters of course is the pregnancy. Not much is documented about the fear of harming the fetus by the spider's poison, or for that matter, conequences of reaction to the treatment which itself can cause a serum sickness reaction. A call to California Poison Control's hotline got initial qualified reassurance and finally a promise to do some quick research and get back to me.

Our Mom-to-be was very cool and given all our concerns and options rightfully chose to wait out the poison which, as of this writing, seems to have been the best choice: She left the E.R. pain-free several hours later, sans treatment.

Patience, Darwin will show up here: Being Ojai persons, she and her husband first wanted the poison sucked out-"no can do," then wanted homeopathic methods of treatment-"I don't do that either," then asked about her own mother smearing "Zeolite" on the wound and administering it by mouth as a cure-"I hadn't the slightest idea," then when Mom showed up with the dropper of Zeolite, it all came back: She turned to me and earnestly asked if she could bring in her "Stun gun" to shoot her own pregnant daughter in the foot! (and would it harm the baby?) After all, between the taser and nipping at Zeolite "two years ago, she had saved her own self after a rattlesnake bite landed her in the hospital!" (while hapless ICU staff infused bottles of Crofab rattlesnake antivenin!) Darwin has a cold heart if the irony doesn't tug at your funnybone.

Submitted on 11/15/2010

Submitted by: Gordon Clawson, MD.
Reference: 11/15/2010: Ojai E.R., California Poison Control

Copyright © 2010 DarwinAwards.com

>> Moderator Scores <<

Bruce said:
Definitely Toss: Other
Thanks for an interesting story, Gordon, but I'm not sure about any awards here. My first thought is that the unborn child could be considered an innocent bystander to all this. On top of that, homeopathic remedies are all too common, and it also sounds like it was stupidity on the part of the mother which almost resulted in the daughter being zapped with a stun gun, which doesn't fit into our self-selection rule. It is one heck of a funny story though. Thanks for sending it in!


Candi said:
Definitely Toss: Other
What Bruce said.


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