~35 years ago, my mother worked in a clinic in central America. One of the more-memorable patients was a 15-year old who arrived without a left index finger. Un

~35 years ago, my mother worked in a clinic in central America. One of the more-memorable patients was a 15-year old who arrived without a left index finger. Unlike most people who'd have appeared in that condition, he was jubilant. He'd been out in the jungle cutting chicle (preparing trees to collect sap out of which to make rubber), when he was bit on the tip of that finger by Fer-de-lance: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bothrops_asper https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bothrops_asper (As I understood the story, it had been lying unseen on top of a branch he grabbed.) He immediately, as in within seconds, laid his finger against a tree and whipped it off at the root with his machete. No one questioned the correctness of his decision, because he subsequently survived a 45-minute walk to the trail-head, and a 2-hour drive to the clinic, without any sign of further envenomation. (Indeed, the clinic didn't keep any anti-venom, so he'd have had a further 40 minutes to go to the hospital in the nearest small city.) His chances of living would have been dicy at best, and the loss of at least his entire arm a certainty. The local (Maya-language) slang for the Fer-de-lance translated to something like "fifteen-steps", because that was supposedly how far you'd walk before you'd die from a bite. Brave, quick-thinking dude.