Run-in with rattler almost proves fatal Fisherman bit 3 times

Run-in with rattler almost proves fatal
Fisherman bit 3 times near Fort Pierre

By Steve Young
syoung@argusleader.com
Comment Print Email PUBLISHED: October 7, 2007
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When it comes to bad luck, some might say that Dwight Hiatt is snakebit.

And they'd be right.

On the evening of Aug. 31, the 50-year-old Fort Pierre man was sitting in his Chevy Nova on a boat ramp at Antelope Creek, 10 miles south of Fort Pierre, eyeballing his fishing pole set up near shore, when the end of the pole started twitching.

Hiatt threw open the door, got out and immediately stepped on a prairie rattlesnake.

"He got me three times, twice on my right ankle and once on the leather strap on my sandal," Hiatt recalled.

Had the third strike connected, he added, "I don't see how I would have made it."

Within 60 seconds, he said he could feel the venom taking effect. His lips felt numb. His ears were buzzing.

Rattlesnake bites are fairly uncommon in South Dakota. The state Department of Health doesn't track snakebites. It tracks deaths from a bite by a poisonous snake or lizard, and there have been none since 2000, spokeswoman Barb Buehler said. In fact, records indicate there have been only five such deaths in the past 60 years.

Avera McKennan sees at most one snakebite a year, officials there said. Sanford Health officials say they deal with one to four snakebite victims a year. The Badlands, which have a lot of rattlers, have only registered two or three bites in the past 15 years.

Hiatt was driving to the emergency room at St. Mary's Hospital in Pierre when he started to lose consciousness and went into the ditch. An ambulance ended up transporting him the last six miles.

From St. Mary's, he was airlifted to Sanford in Sioux Falls. He spent the next 11 days there, the first three of which he doesn't even remember.

"The emergency room people told me at Sanford that had I been 20 minutes later on the air flight, basically, there wasn't much they could have done," Hiatt said.

His right leg turned black and blue from the knee to his toes and swelled up. The venom affected his breathing, too.

But he was lucky, said Hiatt, who added that he loses his breath easily now and still walks with a gait.

"It changes your perspective on life," he said. "I take things a little more seriously. I consider myself very fortunate."

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