Three Blessings

(OF MANY)

I have been thinking about teaching techniques and the associated dangers of hands-on activities. These thoughts were generated from news articles of situations that can be labeled "when things gone seriously wrong". I have had the opportunity of teaching a plethora of marvelous students. The majority were serious about their studies and had a real joy about them when they studied science.

First blessing is that I never encountered a problem when teaching parasitology even though a major part of the labs dealt with conducting necropsies of many different animals. A necropsy is an examination of a dead animal and in this case we were looking for parasitic infestations. We would examine the external features and then carefully dissect the organs including the lungs, heart, intestinal tract, etc. It is fine to observe jars of preserved parasites and look at prepared slides, but to encounter tapeworms, roundworms, flukes, and other parasites in their environment is an outstanding adventure. We often did necropsies on many different animals including fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

We did wear protective gloves, but one young lad did not as he was searching through the intestinal tract of a groundhog. He was my only example of a necropsy causing an effect in the examiner. He came down with a bad case of POISON IVY! Yep, the groundhog had recently eaten poison ivy and the allergen was waiting for this unprotected lad!

A news article from several years ago shows that necropsies can be lethal and comes from not Appalachia but the western United States. A wildlife biologist at Grand Canyon National Park most likely died from the plague contracted while performing a necropsy on a mountain lion that later tested positive for the disease.



Eric York, 37, who worked in the park's cougar collaring program, became ill on Oct. 30 and called in sick from for a couple of days before he was found dead in his home Nov. 2. Tests for pneumonic plague were positive .

Officials said that 49 people who came in contact with York were given antibiotics as a precaution. None have shown symptoms of the disease.

York, whose family lives in Massachusetts, had skinned the cougar and was exposed to its internal organs during the necropsy he performed three days before developing symptoms, said David Wong, an epidemiologist for the U.S. Public Health Service.

Blessing Two is that during the many years that I kept snakes, I did not have any life threatening episodes. We had collections of several species of rattlesnakes, many copperheads, and large pythons. (Not to mention alligator, lizards, and other interesting reptiles.) We would exhibit the reptile collection "on the road" to local schools and 4-H camps. Our large 16 foot python was always the star of the show. Kids always helped to carry the beast around the room. I always took the head and made certain that we washed and had no smell of mice on us. That can be a problem- Rick, my trusty lab assistant, was cleaning out the pine snake's cage. It is usually a docile snake and only about two feet long. It seems Rick forgot the "WASH" rule and placed the snake around his shoulders as he as often done in the past. He had just cleaned the mice. The snake started to constrict him around the neck and he said to a group of students that he needed help. Well, they though ole Rick was kidding and finally decided that they should extract the pine snake from his neck. Only results of this encounter was that the next day Rick looked as if he was wearing eye liner. The pressure of the snake's constriction had ruptured some blood vessels in his eyelids.

To take these animals lightly and treat them as domestic pets can produce deadly consequences. Take the case of the Associated Press article below.

A 14-foot pet python crushed its owner to death, authorities said Tuesday after finding the snake loose in a southern Indiana shed with the man's body.

Von Allmen, 23, was found Monday evening in the shed near Lanesville, about 15 miles west of Louisville, Ky.

A medical examiner determined that the death was consistent with asphyxiation caused by compression of the neck and chest, said Conservation Officer Mark Farmer.

"When you're dealing with a wild animal species, you take on a certain amount of risk," he said.

Von Allmen had told family members he was going to treat the snake for a medical condition, farmer said. He was alone in the shed with the python for about three hours before his body was found.

Relatives said Von Allmen had 10 to 12 years of experience handling reptiles, according to authorities. The family got the snake as a pet five months ago, Farmer said.

My third blessing of this morning deals with teaching spelunking classes for several years at Glenville State and also Salem College (now Salem International University). Part of the course were lectures dealing with cave geology and safety and then a major portion involved field trips to WV caves. The field work was an integral experience of the cave science experience. The only accident happened just as we entered the Sinks of Gandee. A student stepped and cut his leg on a rock outcropping. We did have to stop the Elkins hospital for stitches. This was a minor in the world of splunking.

My last news story is from last week. Entrapment is always a scary aspect especially when one is in charge of 25 kids exploring a cave.

From correspondents in Salt Lake City, USA
November 29, 2009 06:24am

A NARROW crevice in a Utah cave will become a cave explorer's final resting place after authorities decided to permanently seal the cavern and not recover his body.
Local officials said on Friday it would be too dangerous to pursue efforts to recover the body of John Jones, who was pronounced dead shortly before midnight on Wednesday, about 28 hours after getting stuck at the Nutty Putty caves, about 100km south of Salt Lake City.

"The body will stay inside and the cave access will be permanently sealed," Utah County sheriff's department spokesman Spencer Cannon said.

"Continuing the rescue operations is too dangerous and too difficult."
He said cave access will be sealed within the next week or two. A statement on the cavern's website said all caving there is prohibited due to the tragic incident.

Nearly 100 rescuers had worked frantically around the clock to try to free Mr Jones, who was trapped 46 metres underground and 213 metres from the entrance of the cave.
The medical student, married with a daughter and another child on the way, was stuck upside down in a vertical shaft known as Bob's Push that's about 45cm wide and 25cm high.

The decision to make the cave Jones's tomb came "with assurances to the family that the cave would be closed and that his body would never be disturbed", cave management said on the Nutty Putty website.

A memorial was planned for Saturday in Stansbury Park. The caver's family invited emergency rescue personnel and volunteers to attend the service and a dinner afterward "so that they can meet with the family and personally express their thanks".
In the past 10 years, four other people had to be rescued from the Nutty Putty Cave, but none of them had died there, Mr Cannon said.

By 2005, the well-known cave, which was never fully mapped, was receiving nearly 5000 visitors a year.

I do miss caving. Most likely with my current health status these activities are no longer in my future. Oh, the memories! There have been many changes in caving since we began our experiences in the early 1970's. Now we are concerned about White Nose Disease that is killing the bats in the Northeastern United States. Many caves are closed because of this disease. Many landowners have closed their caves due to the hassle of dealing with some cavers and also issues of liability. If you are interested in specific closed caves in our state, go to this website.

http://www.caves.org/grotto/dcg/CC/cc-frameset.html