SNAKES often bite their prey as a method of hunting, but also for defensive purposes against predators. The outcome of snake bites depends on numerous factors, including the species of snake, the area of the body bitten, the amount of venom injected, and the health conditions of the person. A victim of a snake bite, NELSON CHANDA narrates how he survived to tell his story.
AFTER a fortnight had elapsed since our beloved retired father was buried at his final resting place, a distant village where he was born, fate seemed to be quiet and still. From that point in time I pondered to return to my place of work.
Usually, buses were not common in remote rural areas, and I had to arrange transport with a lorry operator who was hired to bring farming inputs during the United Nations Independence Party (UNIP) era of the ‘Lima’ and ‘Go back to the land ‘ campaign programmes.
Our farm was isolated.It was a bush away from the rest of the inhabitants of Chalabesa Catholic Mission Complex which included a hospital. Other entities with standard structures were a government primary school, a co-operative multi- purpose credit union and mushroomed villages which went beyond a stretch I couldn’t measure.
At cock crow, I woke up and bade every member of the family goodbye .Precisely at 05.00 hours, I set off in anticipation to catch a lift at a rendezvous for a ride of more than 150 kilometers from Mpika west to the BOMA (a colonial term for British Organisation Military Admistration) in the east.
Clad in pyjamas and slippers and a bag hung on my shoulder expecting to dress accordingly when I reached my destination, I strode contently along a clear dusty track .It was on 31st October, 1989.
After covering a distance of about 300 meters, after our residence receded into the background, all of a sudden, I felt an instant sharp sting beyond the pain of a wasp on the side of the sole of my left foot.
Instantly, I inspected closely the affected part and noticed two small drops of blood, from the wound. Again, I cast my eyes behind in order to trace my foot prints and observed a snake of about 70cm, writhing on the sand as if intoxicated. It was then that I sensed that I I’d been bitten by a serpent.
“Am I going to die like my father, so soon?” a thought agitated my mind.
I quickly picked up a stone and threw it without really looking or aiming at my attacker.
From the bag, I took out a wire clip I bound bank notes with and scratched the wound to let the blood flow.Frantically, I also extracted fibre from a nearby small ‘Mutondo’ tree and fastened my leg tightly below the knees as well as the upper left thigh, so as to impede the venom from moving up in the bloodstream, as part of first aid.
‘’What an anticlimax of the events!’’ I muttered to myself.
Although the journey continued, I limped in agony and the pain was getting worse. My left foot had swollen to the size of a mine safety boot! I then undid the slipper because, it became smaller and packed it in the bag.
I had nowhere to seek help. To my mesmerism, I did not even notice the passer-by villagers who were subsistence farmers going to and from their shifting cultivation ‘chitemene’ gardens beyond our fields and across Lubaleshi River.
Only the bushes laughed at me. The sun also had not yet risen. The birds sang songs of emergency in alertness and flew away as if in fright of my peculiar movement and sounds of limping. The bag kept on hitting my belly and bouncing in elasticity like a catapult.
As I moved on steadily, a broad human settlement emerged. The men who were waiting with a heavy lorry saw me from a distance. I raised my arm and gave them a beckoning sign. At once, the four men responded by running towards my direction.
I sat down because I was out of breath. My left leg had by then bulged to the point you would think I was suffering from elephantiasis. The venom had touched both my heart and throat.
‘’The chicken has stricken me,’’ I cried out in agony as the men approached.
‘’O! Sorry! What a swollen leg! Come on, quickly! Let’s take him to the hospital,’’ they spoke with the emotion of good Samaritan as they lifted me up together as if they were a modified stretcher.
The clock on the wall of the hospital reception read 06:00 hours. The invisible men left me in the midst of a couple of trainee nurses clad in white uniforms with green striped lines.
The nurses treated me by cutting at the wound to let blood come out. After cleaning it, they produced a unique stone I had never seen before. They stuck it on the affected part as if it was a magnet.
‘’What kind of a stone is this?’’ I asked as they pushed me on a wheel chair to the male ward.
‘’It absorbs poison from the body,’’ said a nurse who carried my bag.
I was left sleeping on the hospital bed uncomfortably as if I had drunk ‘Ulunsonga, a poisonous green leaf tube- like drought- resistant fence flower common at Copperbelt’s mine residential areas.
Sooner or later I discovered that the ‘magical’ stone had fallen off the wound, causing me great anxiety and panic. I felt like I was not human and had no option, but to scream for help.
I yelled loudly in agony in an effort to seek medical assistance! My voice echoed through the ward of the Mission Health Centre.
Fortunately, the senior Medical Officer arrived. He burst into the ward with gusto, his white coat swinging behind like wings of an angel who had descended from heaven. Promptly, we were in the treatment room where the doctor sealed off a syringe from its cover.
Efficiently, he commenced pricking the instrument’s sharp points incessantly into the wound as blood oozed out, but the doctor restored the precious stone on the wound. At one moment, I remember, he gave me some antidotes for taking away the effects of the venom.
Unexpectedly, my mother entered the ward, in company of uncle Muindi (Indian) and my sister. My mother was filled with grief which seemed to have deepened, especially after my father had crossed the great beyond. Again, she was worried by the threat on my life by the serpent. She looked depressed and was dumb-founded.
My uncle told me that very few victims of the snake bite in return slay the creature. In my case, the serpent was found engulfed by ants. He named it as indele!
“If it was not killed, even if you were cured, so long as it remained alive, it could be felt in one`s leg as it maneuvered in the wilderness,” the old man said, citing Zambian folklore.
On the 12th day of my illness, the marvelous stone dropped out of the wound of the snake bite. Certainly, my leg had deflated. The crumpling of the skin was evidence that the leg would be snapped to its original size.
At last I was discharged from the hospital and returned to the farm where I continued to recuperate until I returned to my place of work at the Boma.
Sometimes, it is difficult to understand things that are negatively destined to happen. It’s only the Creator who can save and protect us.
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