Thank you Hank for sharing your life story--including your recent snakebite experience. Your mini-Job story was very timely as we have just completed our first Wisdom Book--Job.
This series points us to God's wisdom in all things--something we can never fully understand but helps us see His character. Seeing how you connected your snakebite experience with God's sovereignty, grace, and provision was extremely encouraging.
It was also very interesting that your stepdad was there to encourage you when he said, "Learn what God is trying to show you through this so He won't have to repeat it."
None of us wants to experience pain and suffering (especially from a rattlesnake), but as you said, you are not the same man you were before this experience. Your perspective on what is important has changed. Just as Job was a changed man after his encounter with the Almighty God. Job said, "I had heard of you by the hearing of my ear, but now my eye sees you." (42:5)
We have and/or will all face times of pain and suffering--for enlargement, for discipline and correction, or even for reasons that are beyond our understanding. Regardless of the reason, in all cases we are to simply learn how to trust God and know that He is in control.
I loved the verses you referenced from the hymn "What a Friend We Have in Jesus" when it says:
"O what peace we often forfeit, O what needless pain we bear, All because we do not carry Everything to God in prayer."
Thank you Hank for sharing your story.
(Article by Jeff Dute - jdute@al.com)
Hank Mosley's plan was working to perfection. He'd taken off a week beginning April 6 from his job in Dothan and traveled back to his Camden hometown to turkey hunt the mornings and fish in the afternoon.
While the turkey hadn't cooperated for him the weekend before his vacation week officially started, the bass were cooperating nicely and he'd caught a bunch of fish from a local farm pond.
That Monday morning, Hank, 27, excitedly left his mother, Julia Handly's house, and traveled 15 minutes in the predawn darkness to some of family friend Johnny Webb's property located in the Pebble Hill community off Alabama Highway 41 south of town.
He parked his truck just inside the entrance to a dim, woods road and began working his way over the sometimes steep Grampian Hills terrain to get to his listening spot. As the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, he heard two birds gobble. Hank headed toward the closest, but soon realized it was on the other side of the highway. He turned back and despite a steady rain that had begun to fall, headed deeper into the property and toward the other bird that had only sounded off one time.
"I thought about heading home, but figured I was already wet, so I might as well find a place to sit down and yelp a little bit," he said.
Now nearly a mile in and figuring he was within hearing distance of the second bird, Mosley found a good tree on a ridge where he could see into two open bottoms and planned to sit down and yelp to see if he could get it to sound off.
A fallen pine log sat in front of the tree, so he kicked one end of it and a few limbs out of the way.
"I got my little nest made, and sat down," he said.
While searching the surrounding terrain, he used his feet and legs to finish cleaning out the spot.
What's when he felt it - like someone had stuck his right leg below the knee with a needle.
"I'd heard people who'd been bitten talk about feeling the hit, but I felt the sting more than the hit. I believe I might have been outside of its real hard strike range and it caught me on the way down and back," he said. "I might have kicked it out of the way. It's probably a good thing that it didn't latch onto my leg. If it had, I might have freaked out more than I did. It still didn't seem real to me. Maybe that's why I was able to stay calm."
At this point, Hank said he saw the leaves moving on his right side, and quickly realized it wasn't a bee that'd stung him. "I jumped up to get away and got around the tree. That's when it started rattling and I knew then that it was a rattlesnake for sure," he said. "I found a stump about 15 yards away to sit on. I can tell you I looked real good around that stump before I sat down." It was shortly after 7 a.m.
A CALL FOR HELP
Mosley hardly ever takes his cell phone to the turkey woods, but he'd made an exception just this time so he could use an app that provides aerial topography maps of Earth's terrain. "I'm familiar with the property, but I wanted the aerial map to learn that particular piece a little better," Hank said.
Luckily, he also had cell service. After a call to Webb, who was hunting another property nearby with his grandson went unanswered, he placed a call to his older brother by a year Sam, who still resides in the Camden area about 8 miles from Pebble Hill. Sam would normally have been hunting, himself, but had a meeting that morning, so didn't go. Still, he was outside when the phone started buzzing on the bedroom nightstand. Sam's wife, who he said is normally a heavy sleeper, was awakened and ran outside to give her husband the phone.
"I went into big-brother mode," Sam said. "I jumped in my truck and hauled it out of the driveway so fast. I ran over the trash can and knocked it across the street."
After letting Sam know where he was, Hank decided to check on the snake. It had moved about 5 yards to the left, but started rattling when Hank stepped around the tree. "I keep a dove shell in my vest just for snakes. It'd been there so long that you couldn't read the numbers on the brass anymore." he said. "I could hear it rattling, but all I could really make out was a couple of runs in its body among the leaves, so that's where I shot."
When the mortally wounded snake started rolling, Hank was stunned to see its size. "It was probably 4 inches across the widest part of its underbelly and at least four-and-a-half feet long," he said.
Since larger diamondback rattlesnakes are rare in that part of Alabama, the culprit was most likely a timber rattler, though Hank said he still doesn't know which kind of rattler bit him.
"My level of positivity stops at rattlesnake," he said with a laugh. "I never knew so many things could come through two little pin holes." -- Hank Mosley
Mosley often wears snake boots to the woods, but chose a pair of boots that day that better fit the rigors of climbing longer distances on rough, hilly terrain. He's not convinced the snake boot's higher tops would have prevented the bite since he was sitting when struck. "I know snakes can sense heat, so it might have just bit me higher on my leg," he said. "I guess you also get the sense of being invincible. Snake bites are such a rare occurrence. You only hear about it once or twice a turkey season. You start to think, 'It won't happen to me.'"
Moving back to the stump, Hank took off his belt, wrapped it tourniquet-style above his knee and waited on Sam to arrive.
"He was calm, level-headed," said Sam, who stayed in touch with his brother through most of the drive. "Probably calmer than me. I was driving way too fast and broke all kinds of traffic laws on the way to him. I didn't know what to expect. I've been hunting turkey in the spring since I was a kid, but had no experience with snake bites."
"Fortunately," Sam said, "Hank had pulled his truck out of the road's entrance just enough so I could get by in my vehicle. Luckily, I was able to navigate the wet, hilly and generally rough woods road and pull up right in front of where Hank sat calmly on the stump. He wanted me to go pick up the snake and I told him, 'Get your butt in that truck. We don't have time to worry about that snake.' I might have used a little stronger language than that, but he didn't bother me about getting the snake anymore."
Things came close to taking a bad turn when a front wheel on Sam's pickup fell into a stump hole. The truck wouldn't budge in two-wheel drive. "Sam's four-wheel-drive is a little squirrely and doesn't work every time. He tried it a couple of times and it didn't work," Hank said. "He cut the truck off and said, 'Please, Lord, let this work.' He cranked the truck, pushed the button and the four-wheel drive light came on and we heard it engage. He gassed it and we came on out."
HEADING TO CAMDEN HOSPITAL
The trip out of the woods made Hank realize how lucky he was that Sam could get to him. "Mr. Johnny Webb went back and traced it out at eight-tenths of a mile - and that's horizontal. There is probably two-tenths of a mile in vertical change and a couple of those hills are brutal. There's no way I could have made it out on foot," Hank said.
By this time, the area around the dual fang marks, later measured at 1.18 inches (3 cm) apart, was starting to swell and his lips and tongue were tingling. Hank said he felt a little queasy on the way to Camden, but isn't sure if it was caused by the venom or Sam's death-defying driving along the twisting, roller coaster-like rural road.
Alerted by his mother that her son was on the way with a suspected snakebite, an ambulance was already there when the brothers arrived at the Camden hospital. After a vitals check, Hank was loaded up at about 9 a.m. and, accompanied by his mom, taken to Vaughan Regional Medical Center in Selma.
It was during the ride to Selma that Hank remembered the snakebite kit he'd carried unused for years in his turkey vest. "It's one of those things you have in your turkey vest so long that you just forget about it," he said.
Hank received his first dose of six vials of CroFab beginning at about 11:30 a.m. He said the drug is a multi-snake anti-venom that is effective in treating bites of three different rattlesnakes along with cottonmouths and copperheads. During the day Tuesday, Hank received two, two-vial maintenance doses. His vital signs were always good, but when the swelling in his leg continued to worsen, he was transferred the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center as a precaution in case he had to undergo surgery to relieve the pressure in his right leg.
"It was pretty uncomfortable," he said, 'but I had some pretty good morphine-induced comfort at that point. My right leg looked gigantic compared to my left and I have some pretty big legs anyway."
With the leg elevated, Hank said the swelling had diminished noticeably by Wednesday evening.
He was released from the hospital late Thursday afternoon.
BITE'S AFTERMATH LINGERS IN MORE WAYS THAN ONE
Four days later, he is still feeling the venom's effects on his leg. "I'm still walking real slow," Hank said Tuesday. "I'm using a cane mainly because I can't put my full weight on my right calf muscle. It's still a little tight and swollen. I never knew so many things could come through two little pin holes."
Those effects will eventually fade. Hank said the memory will linger much longer and he'll carry a few new lessons with him the next time he enters the turkey woods.
• Remember that you are not invincible and bad things such as a snake bite can happen to anyone
• Wear your snake boots
• Check the area around your tree before sitting down
• Don't apply a tourniquet. Keeping the bite area below heart level suffices
• Always have a way to contact someone else in case of emergency
"The main thing I learned is that God will look out for you as long as he wants you on this earth," he said. "The Lord lined up so many things that some people would call coincidences. The fact I had my cell phone with me and had cell service, that Sam's wife woke up when I called, that Sam was home and not off hunting, that I parked in the only place Sam could get around my truck and that his four-wheel drive worked when we got stuck.
"Any one of those things doesn't happen and it could have been a lot worse."
