Melanie Cole (Host): The Santa Clarita Valley is home
to many varieties of snakes, some of whom are dangerous. Today we're going to
explain how to identify if a snake is venomous or non venomous, explain how to
protect yourself from venomous snakes and discuss what to do if you're bitten
by a snake. Welcome to It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo Newhall Hospital.

I'm Melanie Cole, and joining me today is Frank Hoffman.
He's a Park Ranger with the Los Angeles County Parks and Recreation Department,
and he's the Recreation Services Supervisor at Placerita Canyon Natural Area,
and he's here to tell us all about Snakes. Ranger Frank, thank you so much for
joining us today. Tell us what kind of snakes can be found in the Santa Clarita
Valley.

Frank Hoffman: Thank you, Melanie. I appreciate the
invitation everybody. Well, we have several varieties, species and subspecies
of snake here. The most common non venomous snakes are going to be your Gopher
Snakes. The California Common King Snakes, our whip snakes like the stripes
whip snake, the racers, the coach whips, which are the red racer and which are
the same snake. And then of course, the rattlesnakes we support in our valley,
and the surrounding areas, the Southern Pacific Rattlesnake. Which is a
subspecies of the Western Diamondback. It's one of several in the state that we
have, but that's ours. That's the one that chooses to support itself in
Placerita Canyon and the Santa Clarita Valley as a whole.

Host: I think this is such a cool topic. Are the
snakes active year round, Ranger Frank or are just at certain times when people
are likely to run into them?

Frank Hoffman: Well, times have changed, Melanie,
from once I started doing this 28 years ago with Parks and Rec. We have seen an
activity support year round. Sometimes in the January, February periods of time
here in SoCal, you'll see several days of warm temperatures. We used to say
between essentially March and October, November for the snakes.

Now we're seeing them with warmer days, sunnier days. We're
seeing them almost sometimes year round. It's almost like our fire season here
has gone year round now, unfortunately. But, as long as people do what they
need to, to protect themselves in the environments, as long as they do what
they need to protect their animals as well, people don't think about their
critters and their animals, then they should be okay.

They'll have great time outside and LA County wants to make
sure that you know you're safe and you're welcome everywhere you can be. And,
in our park system, but, they can be found year round to answer that question
directly. You just never know. And they can be found anywhere from the
outskirts of the Santa Clarita Valley on the urban edge where urban life meets
the outdoor, open space areas.

They can be found in our parks within the middle of the
city. They can be found in storm drains and culverts. Just about anywhere where
they are supported by what they need, of course, food, water, and shelter.
Those are the three things that animals need. And of course, the fourth
arrangement, these things have to be arranged in a way that they can get to
them. There are a lot of things people can do to protect themselves from snakes
like this. The rattlesnakes, of course, are the ones we are worried about the
most.

Melanie Cole (Host): Well, thank you for telling us
where they're found because that's really an important aspect of this. People
are hiking on trails and they're looking around in the bush and they're, you
know, not sure where they're going to see them. Now if a snake does cross
someone's path or they see one, how can you tell if a snake is dangerous? You listed
a whole bunch of them Ranger Frank at the beginning. How do we know? What are
we supposed to do? Carry around a little guide thing? How do we know if it's a
dangerous one or not?

Frank Hoffman: I did mention that. Thank you very
much, Melanie. Actually, there are venomous and non venomous snakes here
clearly. I mentioned the garter snakes and king snakes. You won't always see
the head of the animal. You won't always see the tale of the animal. Non
venomous snakes in California where we're at here in Santa Clarita Valley have
a head and a neck and a body that are almost the same width. It's almost as if
you to look at your thumb, if you gave yourself a thumb up and you looked at
it, the head shape would be typical of your thumb and how it's attached to your
finger and such your body, your hand. It's rounded at the tip. The tail on the
other end is long and narrow and pointed. All non venomous snakes here have
long, narrow pointy tails.

The rattlesnakes by contrast have a wide head, somewhat
blunt nose, a narrow neck, and then a somewhat plump or fattened body. At the
end of the tail, of course, it is flat, it is almost perpendicular to the rest
of the body, flat, straight across. And of course, if the animal has been
eating as it has been growing, it has been shedding its skin. As they get older
and shed their skin, every time that happens, a new rattle or button, if you
will, will be added to the end of the tail. They are not permanent. They break
off. They're very brittle. We dispel at Henry Mayo in our, Rattlesnake
Abatement and Awareness Classes that you cannot tell how old a rattlesnake is
by counting the rattles at the end of the tail.

That just means the animal has shed its skin at least that
many times. When they grow too long, they break off. They might be eating very
well in a given year and growing more than normal or an average, shall I say.
They might shed their skin two or three times in one year, given one season, if
you will.

And, they're adding two or three buttons or rattles. They're
not three years older at the end of the three sheds, they're still a year, but
they've added three rattles, so, that's something we want to make sure people
know is that you cannot tell how old a rattlesnake is by counting the rattles
at the end of the tail.

To protect yourself, is to make sure that you are aware of
your surroundings, making sure that where you are, whether you're stepping out
of your front door of your house. A lot of people have encountered snakes
simply by stepping out of their home. They live on the urban edge, as I
mentioned, where the mountains abut their properties. And, you need to make
sure that you're always watching where you're putting your hands and your feet.

You need to make sure that if you're in the wild and you're
hiking, that you stay again in the middle of the trail. You're not bush
whacking the trails, going off trail, cutting your own paths. Rattlesnakes
don't always warn you before they harm you.

You're lucky if you hear it before it sees you and strikes
out in a defensive strike. They don't want to hurt you. They don't want
anything to do with you. They're more afraid of you than you are them. But they
will do what they have to, to protect themselves in their territory, their
natural habitat, if they have to, if they feel threatened.

A lot of cases when people encounter rattlesnakes, if
there's a group of people, the snake will take off in a direction that is
seemingly in your direction, in your path. It's like it's coming at you. No,
the snake just chose the wrong path. Again, he was trying to get out of there.
Animals' two instincts are fight or flight, and all they want to do is get the
heck out of there and not have any encounter with something that's coming with
that large a vibration in the earth, in the soil, they pick up vibrations in
the earth with some nerve receptors on their lower jaw. They can't hear, they
have no ears.

So that's how they, they determine whether something is
going to be a potential prey animal or whether or not it's a potential predator
that could harm them, and they're going to do everything they can to survive.
That's a very strong instinct with wildlife and animals, of course.

Host: So what do we do, Frank, if they are coming at
us? Do we run? Do we step aside? Do we just stand really still? What do we do
if a snake is coming towards us?

Frank Hoffman: Just stand still. Observe the snake.
Be glad that you got to see it. It's rare that people even encounter snakes out
there on the trails. At least here our valley at Placerita. You know, stand
still give it a chance to determine which is the best exit route.

And it will usually crawl away in a mild mannered, calm.
Sometimes people walk up on snakes and surprise them. They'll blast off like
the racers, they're very quick. They'll just head off an opposite direction as
quickly as they can. They, unlike a lot of snakes, they have very good
eyesight.

Some snakes don't have very good eyesight. The racers do.
They can see as well as feel that vibration, but stand still, give the snake an
opportunity to crawl away. If it doesn't, and you can do so safely with about
at least a six foot distance from the snake and walk around it to continue on
your path, you should be able to do that.

Another thing that I do is always hike with a stick. So if I
have to put my walking stick tip in the dirt in between the snake and myself,
if there's an issue, then I can do that and, very safely walk around the snake.
I'll walk away from it. I know we're talking to a Southern California audience,
but walking around it sometimes might put you in a situation where you're
walking through poison oak.

We have that here. In the Midwest and back east, folks have
to be concerned with poison ivy. Of course. I'm aware of that. We don't have
anything other than the Southern Pacific rattlesnake in our immediate area.
Although we have, nine different types of rattlesnakes here, I believe, the
Western Diamondback and the Subspecies. We do not have coral snakes here. We do
not have copperheads. We do not have the water moccasin.

We have a snake that mimics the coral snake, the California
Mountain King Snake one I hadn't mentioned yet. It's an example of animal
mimicry where it has brightly colored skin, red, black, and white, and it's
mimicking the coral snakes, which are red, black, and yellow.

We try to teach the folks that visit Placerita that if red
touches yellow, it could kill a fellow. But if red touches black, it's a friend
of jack or venom lack. It's however you want to remember it, but, milk snakes
and king snakes have that red, black, and white pattern on their bodies.

The coral snakes are red, black, and yellow, and those can,
of course, inflict severe damage to, humans and animals at the same time. And
just be careful where you're watching everybody. If you are on the trail and
you have to step over a log, or get over a log somehow, make sure you look over
it first or step on top of the log and look over and see what's on the other
side at the base of the log in the shadow.

Don't just step over it, you know, there might be a snake
there waiting for you and it will lash out if it feels threatened and maybe
bite your ankle.

Host: That's a great piece of advice. That one really
is. Now Frank, what do you do if you do get bit, because I think people have
all different kinds of opinions, whether they should put on a tourniquet,
whether they should use some sort of device to try and suck out the venom,
whether they should. What should they do? What do they do?

Frank Hoffman: That is very old school, Melanie.
Very, very old school, my lady. No, absolutely not to either of those two.
First thing is, if you can keep your yourself calm or keep your patient calm,
do just that. Tell them that you're doing everything you can to get help. The
first and immediate thing I want you to do or people to do is call 911.

Send the medical or get the medical attention to you
immediately. If you have anything, on the appendage that was bitten. In fact,
most people are bitten from the waist up is my understanding. Almost 80, 85% of
the people that are bitten are bitten from the waist up, usually the hands and
the arms. So immediately get your watches off, your bracelets, your rings,
anything that might act as a constricting band.

You don't want to do that. You do not want to restrict your
body's fluids from interacting, I understand with the venom that was just
injected into your system. Everything, of course is relative to the bite
itself. Was it a scratcher? Did it sink in? Is it still hanging on? A lot of
people think baby rattlesnakes are more dangerous than the adults.

They are not. We'll get to that in a minute, but stay calm.
Get your rings off, your watches, your bracelets. Get the bite below the heart.
Put a bend in your elbow, bend it as if it were fractured. If you can support
it like as if somebody had a broken arm or like that, try to do that. If you
must walk cause you're by yourself, which we don't recommend. We want to
prevent a lot of things from happening. Don't hike alone. Hike it with a buddy
system, carry a stick, right? So put a bend in it, walk very, very slowly.
Drink as much water as you can, continue to hydrate your body. Walk very slowly.
Tell 911 where you're located. Make sure they know how to find you. They will
begin, analyzing, the potential bite that had occured, they'll be radioing back
to the hospital. We're very thankful in Santa Clarita Valley, Henry Mayo
Newhall Hospital does treat for rattlesnake envenomation.

A lot of folks don't have that ability based on where
they're located. We have several hospitals on the outskirts of the Santa
Clarita Valley, like Northridge Hospital and Antelope Valley Hospital, the
sister hospitals that Henry Mayo uses, if they run out of antivenom, for
example, they have a partnership where they work with other hospitals.

But we have the fortunate ability to do that call. They'll
call ahead. They will make sure that the hospital knows you're on your way.
They'll be checking your vitals and letting everybody know that you're in the
ambulance heading that way and, they'll start mixing that anti-venom to get
ready for you.

And they have had a very, very, very, very good success rate
here at Henry Mayo. It's my understanding, and we love what they do. We love
this community outreach, what they're doing for the community in our Santa
Clarita Valley. And from what I understand at large, stay calm, walk very
slowly. Get the bite below the heart, get the rings off, the watches, the
bracelets. And just do what you can to get to medical attention as quickly as
possible. Time is tissue. The longer it takes for you to get to medical
attention, the more potential tissue damage can happen to your body or, where you
were bitten.

And, we don't want, anything to happen anymore than what
unfortunately has already occurred. Most people survive rattlesnake bites from
what I understand in the state. We only lose maybe one, maybe two or so people
every year. From what I understand to be an estimated 220 or so rattlesnake
bites annually in our state.

I know that people that collect rattlesnakes when they get
calls from people about rattlesnakes in their properties or in their homes. A
friend here in the Santa Clarita Valley recently told me, in fact, as recent as
yesterday, that his crew, since the first of the year, has picked up roughly
25, 30 ish or so rattlesnakes from people's properties in the valley here.

He says that's not unusual, that's not abnormal. They are
out right now. People need to be aware that they are, they need to bring up any
extra water bowls or dishes that they don't need. They need to do things around
their home, like brush up the limbs and the branches especially around the
water hoses and the water spigots.

You want to make sure that you have a clear view of where
that water handle is so that you're not reaching down. And for something to
strike out and bite. Food, water, shelter and arrangement if you've got drippy
water faucets at your property, or if you have water sources like ponds or
pools or streams. These are locations where prey animals will go and the snakes
will track them and they will be there. And they also find these water sources
as a necessity of survival. So they're out there, but they're very important in
the environment too. We know that. We know we need snakes out there. They're
cleaning up the rodent populations.

So we know snakes are a vital part of our environment.
County of Los Angeles wants you to know that, Henry Mayo wants you to know that
everybody. They're very, very important part of our ecosystem, and they should
be left alone at all opportunities, left alone to do what Mother Nature has
intended for them to do, and maintain the rodent populations that we have out
there in our, in our wild spaces.

Host: Frank, you are so passionate and knowledgeable
and so easy to listen to. Boy, what a great topic. I could talk to you all day.
I just have one question. I'd like you to summarize. Just kind of give us your
best advice. As we think about hiking and, and you've given us such great
advice about what to look for and where to look and what to do if bitten, what
can people really do to protect themselves?

Does the clothes we wear, does hiking with a dog for
example, keep you safer? Or is that dog likely to get into a scuffle with the
snake? Kind of just summarize for us your best advice when you give these
popular classes on Snake Safety at Henry Mayo Fitness and Health.

Frank Hoffman: Well, what I do is I teach that there
are more than five senses. There are six actually. Sight, smell, touch,
hearing, taste and your most important sense, your common sense. You can have a
dog on a leash. Sure, I get that. But if your dog is 20 feet in front of you on
one of those extended lines, that can be a challenge. Sure. He or she are going
to get up to that snake before you are. I recommend that people, when they're
out there with their animals, keep them on a tight leash. Keep them within
five, six feet of yourself. Not to mention the other issues out there, the
spiny plants and the other dogs off their leashes.

When you walk on the trail, as I mentioned, walk in the
middle of the trail. Be aware of your surroundings. Pay attention to what your
ears are telling you or what your dog senses are, you know, when your dog might
know or feel or sense danger. A lot of folks will send their dogs, for example,
to Rattlesnake Awareness Training where they are taught to be aware of, to
smell things like rattlesnakes and stuff before they get too close.

Pay attention to your animals. Pay attention to your own
common sense. Again, always hike with a stick. Don't hike alone. Don't hike in
areas that you are unfamiliar with or where you know there have been a lot of
snake sightings. Use off hours, use the cooler times of day. Maybe or the
hotter times of day too.

I mentioned that rattlesnakes like 75 to 80 degrees as a
optimal temperature. Maybe a little bit warmer for you, but hopefully the
snakes all have been put in and they won't be coming out at, those times when
it's super hot. They don't like when it's super cold either. So I, suggest
people hike in the fall, in the winter, maybe get your exercise in in the
spring, but be cautious of the time of day.

When the hot part of the day starts to mellow and afternoons
between three and five o'clock, when it starts to cool, that's when the snakes
are going to be more abundant too. Know, your surroundings, know snake history,
come to the Placerita Nature Center and come find out from the nature center
what to do and what not to do.

And of course, always make sure your veterinarian, as I
mentioned, knows how to treat for rattlesnake envenomation too. You don't want
to spend time looking for a vet that does. Make sure you check ahead of time.
It's like a Boy Scout motto and common sense approach to being prepared. Always
be one step ahead of the potential dangers and maladies that can happen when,
you're not just in the nature of things, but when you're at home as well. Be
alert.

Host: Be alert. What great advice, Frank. My goodness,
you are so much fun to talk to Ranger Frank. Thank you so much for joining us
and from time to time, Ranger Frank teaches a popular class on Snake Safety at
Henry Mayo Fitness and Health. To see all of Henry Mayo's educational
offerings, most of which are free, you can visit henrymayo.com/classes. You can
also visit the free health information library at library.henrymayo.com. That
concludes this awesome episode of It's Your Health Radio with Henry Mayo
Newhall Hospital. I'm Melanie Cole. Thanks so much for joining us today.