June• 2019 | 55the snake. “Brown and big” is how she
remembers it. To me the snake was
more of a sensation: a light tap on my
right ankle. Then I passed out.WHEN I AWOKE,I had my first bout
of violent vomiting. My parents were
talking through the options to get me
out. My mum had been an emergen-
cy nurse and a doctor’s assistant for 35
years. But on the 700 missions she and
my d ad had conducted as volunteers
of a s earch and rescue team, neither
had ever dealt with a rattlesnake bite.
Lying in the grass, I thought
maybe t hat was all the venom would
do – m ake me sick. I didn’t know it
then, but the rule about rattlesnake
bites is ‘time is tissue’. How manyminutes or hours elapse before you
get the antivenom determines your
fate: an afternoon in the hospital,
amputation or death.
I threw up every few minutes, in in-
tensif ying waves. Garrett was already
running b ack towards the town to
get mobile phone reception and call
emergency services. On a map, the
location where I was bitten looks
drivable. It wasn’t. Two wildfires had
recently burnt the area and it’d be
generous to call what was left a track.
The dispatcher didn’t know this. She
ordered a Life Flight helicopter and
an ambulance stationed in Yosem-
ite Valley. She then asked Garrett to
run to Foresta to guide the incoming
PHOTO: COURTESY KYLE DICKMAN paramedics.
Kyle, his wife Turin and baby Bridger earlier in the family’s month-long road trip