"Heck, sure, pal, I'll suck the venom out of your face--what's that? You were bitten WHERE????"
Irish tourist Jackson Scott was engaged in a necessary bodily function while vacationing in the Australian outback, when he was bitten—on the testicle. The biter was a tiger snake, and its venom can be fatal.
Panicked, Scott begged his camping companion, Roddy Andrews to suck the venom out. Roddy, however, said, “Ewwwww!”
Also, “No.”
But he drove Scott in a race against time to the nearest hospital, where doctors administered an antidote in time, barely, to save Scott’s life.
As it happens, sucking the venom out of snake bite wounds was once the favored emergency treatment, but today it is regarded as dangerous and ineffective. That’s not why Pal Roddy refused to suck however. You know why he refused to suck. And that makes Roddy a rotten friend. Yes, for Roddy and most other men, sucking on your friend’s testicle is not a pleasant experience, but it’s not as if he was being asked to saw his own arm off. (There actually is a risk to sucking out tiger snake venom, but Roddy didn’t know that.) His unwillingness to do something he found disgusting to try to save his friend’s life would have been unforgivable, if:
- Jackson Scott had died before he could be delivered into a doctor’s care, and
- The old “suck the poison out” method was valid, as both Jackson and Roddy thought it was.
Scott did live, and everyone is telling Roddy that it’s a good thing he didn’t suck on his friend’s naughty bit, so he’s a hero, not a cowardly, squeamish skunk—all because of factors completely beyond his control.
Moral luck.
When it breaks your way, there’s nothing better.
Ethics Alarms 
That mirrors an old joke where Roddy calls a Dr. from a remote location to explain the situation. The Dr. tells Roddy he would not be able to get there in time with the anti-venom, so Roddy would have to, well, you get the picture.
Roddy asks the Dr. what would happen if he didn’t ‘remove’ the venom, and the Dr. tells him it would be fatal for his friend.
Roddy returns to his friend who asks him what the Dr. said. Roddy tells his friend ” Doc says you’re gonna to die.”
Pretty close to what happened!
Of course, now anyone who reads this article will have an excuse NOT to suck venom out of someone’s testicle. “I heard it’s ineffective!”
That’s why when I hike in poisonous snake territory, I either take a handheld pump, a length of tubing or my pill that makes me gay for fifteen minutes.
Are these jokes in bad taste? I know they would obviously be if he died…
I detect “The Family Guy.”
I have been watching a lot of Family Guy… I AM from Rhode Island, after all.
Sorry hewas SQUATTING in the garden? You dont do that to urinate to to that to …well you know what . So basically this drunken fool was taken a bowel movemnet in the garden and gets bit and he wants his friend to suck out the poison??? Sorry but he is on his own. lol
Well fine…I’m not coming to YOU when I get bitten then!
I can’t wait to share this story with my teenage son. He and his freinds are going to really enjoy it … and discuss the ethical implications in depth, I’m sure ….
Right.
Moral: If you get bitten in an unmentionable area by a venomous snake… BITE IT BACK! That way, if you die, at least you’ll be taking the damn thing with you. That small comfort, at least.