Activated Charcoal

Not actually Erin.

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

Before I tell you about activated charcoal, I need to explain the difference between absorption and adsorption. 

• Absorption is when a fluid is taken into the volume of something, like water into a sponge. 
• Adsorption is when a substance, be it gas, liquid or dissolved solid, adheres to the surface area of something. Think of it like a brush picking up lint, but on a molecular level.

Activated charcoal is a fine, black powder that is odorless, tasteless, and nontoxic that is also a highly adsorptive substance, and it works by attracting toxins to its large surface area -- just one gram of it has a surface area in excess of 3,000 square meters -- which then bind to it through absorption. Since carbon isn't digestible, ingesting tablets of activated charcoal will act as a filter that travels through your stomach and intestines and is then safely eliminated along with the poisons it collects. 

How safely? In 1813 the French chemist M. Bertrand swallowed a lethal dose of arsenic mixed with charcoal and survived without any ill effects. In 1831, French pharmacist named P. F. Touery swallowed ten times the lethal dose of strychnine, followed by just 15 grams of charcoal in a demonstration before the French Academy of Medicine. He, too, survived with no ill effects. 

The key word, however, is activated. Not all charcoal is activated carbon, and the charcoal briquettes you buy for grilling are probably full of unhealthy chemicals to increase burn time. If you want activated charcoal, you have two choices: buy it or make it. Buying it is pretty easy; you can get a bottle of one hundred capsules from Amazon for about $10. I have two of these, one of my bug out bag and one in my get home bag. If you are prepping for the home, you are better off buying by the pound. 

Making it yourself is a lot more complicated, and will be the subject of a later article. 

Administering Activated Charcoal

DISCLAIMER: This information is intended only for education and it meant to be used only in extreme situations. If you can call 911 or get to an Emergency Room, do so before following these directions. 

I am not a physician and this should not be construed as medical advice. I accept no responsibility should you or someone under your care suffer harm from following these directions. 

1) Drink it as Powder in Water

Store-bought activated charcoal often comes in gelatin capsules, primarily to prevent a mess. (If you've ever had a copy machine spill toner, you know the kind of mess I'm talking about.) However, if you swallow the pill whole, the gelatin must first be digested before the charcoal can begin working, and if the recipient has ingested something toxic they may not have that time. It is far more effective to break a capsule, pour it into a cup of water, and have the recipient drink it. Warning: Do not breathe activated charcoal! It will cause Pneumonitis!

2) Drink a LOT of it

The amount of activated charcoal to administer is based on either the amount of toxin ingested, if known, and the patient's body weight if not. Regardless, it's going to be lot as most activated charcoal capsules are measured in milligrams and the recommended doses to counteract poisoning are measured in grams per kilogram of patient weight. From The Use of Activated Charcoal to Treat Intoxications (2019) comes this table: 

from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6620762/

Let's look at that Amazon listing I linked. It has 100 capsules of 560 milligrams activated charcoal each. A 50 gram dose for an adult would be (100 x 560 = 56,000 mg = 56 grams), or the entire bottle. It's going to be awful, but it's better than dying. 

If you want to read more on the specifics, I suggest the Mayo Clinic's page on activated charcoal and this PDF. 

3) Drink it quickly

Activated charcoal can only bind with toxins which haven't been absorbed into the body through the intestines, so you need to administer it as soon as possible (preferably within an hour of poison ingestion). 

4) Know what it can and cannot adsorb

Unfortunately, activated charcoal is not proof against all forms of poison. It has low to no effectiveness against:

• Alcohols (e.g., ethanol, methanol, and glycols [for instance ethyleneglycol])
• Anorganic salts (e.g., sodium chloride)
• Metals and their anorganic compounds (e.g., lithium, iron, or other heavy metals [for instance lead or mercury])
• Organic solvents (e.g., acetone, dimethylsulfoxide)
• Acids and bases
• Cyanides

It is, however, quite effective against: 

• ACE inhibitors
• Acetaminophen (brand name Tylenol) 
• Amphetamines
• Antidepressants (except lithium)
• Antiepileptics
• Antihistamines
• Aspirin, salicylates
• Atropine
• Barbiturates
• Benzodiazepines (NB: somnolence)
• Beta blockers
• Calcium-channel blockers
• Quinine, quinidine
• Chloroquine and primaquine
• Dapsone
• Digoxin, Digitoxin
• Diuretics (especially furosemide, torasemide)
• Nonsteroidal antirheumatics (NSAR)
• Neuroleptics
• Oral antidiabetics (especially glibenclamide, glipizide)
• Opiates, dextromethorphan 
• Paracetamol
• Piroxicam
• Tetracyclines
• Theophylline
• Phytotoxins that are adsorbed
• Amatoxin (death cap)
• Aconitine (aconite)
• Colchicine (autumn crocus)
• Cucurbitacin (courgette, Cucurbitaceae)
• Ergotamine, ergot alkaloids
• Ibotenic acid, muscarine (fly agaric, panther cap)
• Nicotine (tobacco)
• Ricin (castor oil plant)
• Strychnine (nux vomica)
• Taxanes (yew)
• Digitalis glycosides (foxglove)

Please note that many of those are painkillers and antibiotics, which may result in extreme discomfort for the patient. 

5) Know the side effects

Drinking that much activated charcoal will likely result in nausea and vomiting, mainly from the taste and texture. This could be seen as a good thing, if it causes the patient to vomit up the poisonous substance. 

Diarrhea is a common side effect, and constipation is less common. Black stool is also common, but that's just the charcoal coloring it. 

If the patient is on painkillers or antibiotics, those will need to be re-administered once the toxin has been expelled. 

Making a Poultice

 You can also make a poultice out of it to draw out irritants like from insect bites. You just take two tablespoons of activated charcoal, mix it with sterile water to form a paste, and then put it over the wound. I've included a video of this process as well.

Activated charcoal belongs in every prepper's supplies. Next week, I'll tell you how you can make your own. 

The Sawyer Extractor

My primary first aid kit is a small trauma bag. It was a gift from a former employer for completing a 40-hour First Responder course and volunteering to be one of the medical aid staff at a large (800 acre) industrial site. Over the years, I've added things to it to better address the injuries I was dealing with when I had to open it, and one of  the first additions was a Sawyer  Extractor. This is the same company that makes good water filters, and they've been around for 30+ years, so they're doing things right.

Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

What is it?
The Extractor is a small, hand-operated suction pump for removing venom from stings and bites. It comes in a plastic case that is smaller than a paperback book and weighs only a few ounces.

It is not a replacement for an Epi-pen if you are allergic to insect stings, but it will reduce the amount of venom in your system and reduce your body's reactions to the venom.

What does it do?
By creating a moderate suction in a small area, the Extractor can pull venom from an insect or spider bite to reduce the pain and damage. I've used mine on wasp stings that would normally raise a welt and cause pain for days, and seen nothing more than a red spot and pain that only lasted a few minutes. They are very helpful when dealing with children who have been stung by a bee, wasp, or hornet, as the reduction in pain and swelling reduces the trauma (and drama).

They may help reduce the amount of venom from a snake bite, but since a snake's fangs are longer than most insect stingers, they tend to inject the venom a lot deeper and closer to blood vessels. While something is better than nothing, venomous snake bites are not to be taken lightly, so get proper medical aid ASAP.

How do you use it?
The Extractor is a large, double-chambered, spring-loaded syringe. After placing one of the reusable plastic cups on the tip, you pull the handle all the way to the rear (to compress the spring), place the plastic cup over the bite/sting and then push the handle back down. The spring will force an internal plunger up, creating a gentle suction that draws the venom or poison out. Once you have the venom out, use the alcohol swabs and band-aids provided in the kit to clean and cover the wound to prevent infection. There is also a disposable razor in the kit for removing excessive body hair from the bite/sting site if the hair is thick enough to prevent a good seal between the plastic cup and skin.

Where do I get one?
I've seen them for sale at Walmart for about the same price as you can get them on Amazon. If you want to help support this little blog, please consider using our Amazon link since we get a few pennies per sale through the Affiliate program. If you want to pay more, they are also found in most camping and hunting supply stores. $15 is cheap for something that can prevent a bee sting from ruining a weekend camp-out or make being stuck in the woods less miserable.


Having worked with Cub Scouts and several other groups of younger people, many of whom were not accustomed to living close to nature, I've had to use my Extractor a handful of times over the years. The one in my kit is due for replacement (I'm going through my kit and making some changes, so this is a good time to take inventory and replace things that are out of date), so I'll be picking up a new one soon. While it isn't a definite life-saving device, it is useful enough that I keep one in the big bag.

Snakes and Shudders

Nothing beats real-world skills practice. As part of that mentality, my Boy Scouts and I went camping last weekend. There were many lessons learned about the value of practical skills, and a few new skills were learned.

One of those teaching moments came when the boys encountered a snake. The boys did everything right by standing back and summoning an adult to identify the snake. A couple of us even got some decent pictures. 

(On a humorous note, I think this is the first time that I've been in a group that encountered a snake and NOT been the most scared adult. Snakes and I don't get along at all.)

The snake in question.

The first obvious concern was whether the snake was venomous. When no one else in my group knew how to identify it, I realized just how many folks have no information on how to tell if a reptile is venomous or not. 

With that in mind, here's a handy overview. There are only five types of poisonous reptiles native to the USA: Four are snakes, one is a lizard, and all of them are quite distinctive if you know what to look for.

Coral Snakes

A coral snake. Note the distinctive colors. Image from nature.com

• The odd man out in American poisonous snakes, coral snakes have slender bodies and heads.
• Their distinctive coloring pattern of red, yellow, and black bands is mimicked by some nonvenomous species, but remembering "Yellow, Red, Stop!" helps in identification, as only the poisonous snake has the yellow and red bands touching. 
• Coral snakes are less aggressive than other species, with smaller fangs and a reclusive manner. 
• Their venom is incredibly potent. A bite from a coral snake requires immediate medical attention and has a higher instance of fatality than other species. Coral snake antivenin is also in very short supply, and is no longer being produced.

Rattlesnakes

While rattlesnakes are extremely varied, they all have rattles in common.
Image from sdsnake.com

There are a wide range of species and subspecies of rattlesnake in the USA. Most of them are concentrated in the Southwest, but there are species ranging over much of the country. All of the species represent variances, but there are some common features to all of them:

• They have vertical pupils, but the odds of noticing this on a live snake are slim. 
• They have a blunt tail with bony rattles, which is the source of their name. They can shake these rattles very quickly when threatened, making a buzzing noise that sounds like nothing else. 
• They have broad, triangular heads and thick, fat bodies. 
• They also have sharp, pointed scales, in contrast to the smooth, sleek look of non-venomous species.

Cottonmouth

A cottonmouth making a threat display. uga.edu

• Also known as the water moccasin, the cottonmouth is native to the southeastern United States. 
• It is semi-aquatic, commonly found along streams and rivers. 
• It is a very strong swimmer, able to traverse large bodies of water. 
• Like other vipers, it has a fat body and a broad head. 
• They are particularly large snakes, with adults reaching and exceeding 3 feet in length, and some large examples weighing in at 10 pounds. 
• They are very dark in color, approaching black in full-grown adults.
• They behave more aggressively than other snakes, and will eat virtually any animal, including small alligators. 
• Bites to humans are frequent, although not often fatal. 
• Cottonmouth venom breaks down tissues around the bite, sometimes requiring amputation. It is  however readily treatable with antivenin.

Copperheads

Image from agfc.com

• Copperheads are the least venomous group of snakes. 
• Their bite injects only small amounts of venom, and frequently injects none at all. 
• They range throughout the southern and eastern US, with a preference for deciduous woodlands (areas with leafy trees). 
• Like other venomous snakes, the copperhead has a broad, triangular head and fat body.
• The copperhead is a master of camouflage, with a dirt-colored skin and the tendency to freeze when threatened. 
• This habit actually leads to bites, as the snake is frequently stepped on, or startled by a nearby step.

Gila Monsters

sandiegozoo.org

• Native to the desert Southwest, the Gila Monster is the sole venomous lizard in the USA.
• They're also the largest native lizard, with some specimens reaching two feet long and weighing five pounds. 
• They have pebbled scales and body coloration, with bands of black alternating with orange-to-pink shades.
• While their venom can cause pain and swelling, it occurs in such small quantities that it is not considered lethal to healthy adult humans. 
• Gila monsters are very slow-moving and easy to avoid. 

But What Was It?
Our snake at camp was a common rat snake, great for rodent control and completely harmless to us. The boys got some neat pictures and a fun brush with nature, and the snake slithered off to find some chow.

Discover Life has a great utility for snake identification in the field. Know your venomous snakes so you don't get bitten.

Lokidude

Prudent Prepping: The Hills Are Alive

The dust has settled and the First 72 Hours have passed. Now we concentrate on what to do in, and how to plan for, the long term via Prudent Prepping.

The Hills Are Alive 

And you might not like with what... 

While hiking in the local Regional Park this past weekend, my friends got me involved in geocaching. For those not familiar, geocaching is the recreational activity of following GPS directions to find hidden markers. These markers can just as easily be in urban settings as in the country, with several different caching websites offering slight variations to the basic event.

This is a modern version of orienteering, which I learned in Boy Scouts *mumble*-ty years ago. I found the use of a GPS program on a phone much easier to use than an Army surplus compass and trying to count steps from waypoint to waypoint.

You may or may not know California is suffering through its third year of drought. This adds to the fire danger and also to another problem: Bugs, specifically ticks and yellowjackets.

Yellowjackets

Western Yellowjacket Queen.
Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

Yellowjackets here in California (more correctly wasps) are usually ground dwellers, but can build nests in walls or other hollow spaces. Since they do live in the ground, seeing and avoiding nests can be a problem, especially when it has been so dry. Wasps need lots of food to maintain their nests, and in dry times normal sources are not there, which makes people and our food even more of a target. During the hike with my friends, we had to get up and leave the picnic area due to a cloud of yellow jackets hovering over the tables.

None of us are allergic to stings, so there was no panic as we moved down the trail a bit to eat our snacks. Even so, I was glad to avoid being stung and needing to break out my ancient Sting Kill swabs. I need to buy several more packs to put into my other first aid kits and also into my truck kit, since Firehand's post on vehicle gear made me look at my stuff and I found several things out of date or damaged in my truck 1st Aid kit: triple antibiotic, bandaids, single use eye wash and Sting Kill. Somehow the Sting Kill tubes leaked or were broken, soaking the small pack of band-aids.

Ticks

Adult Pacific Coast Tick
Photo courtesy of UC Davis.

There are several different ticks common to California and I'm not expert enough to easily tell them apart. The University of California, Davis has this informative article describing the different ticks and the areas where they can be found. While we were on well-marked trails and did not go off into the weeds or underbrush, two of us (including myself) found ticks crawling on our shirts. The more common ticks here can transmit Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and there have been several cases of Lyme Disease reported here in California, but it is unclear if the disease was contacted here or not. My friends did not bring their dogs along, which reduced quite a bit of worry on their part. With the different once-a-month treatments available for dogs and cats, keeping pets flea and tick free is much easier than ever.

I made certain to go over my sock area and waist when I got home and then put my clothes through the wash, to make sure nothing was there.

The Takeaway

• Get outdoors, try something new and have some fun with friends, We're going to be complaining about the weather soon enough.
• Be aware of the pests in your area and plan accordingly for accidents.
• Check all your first aid kits regularly and rotate out old items.
• As a reminder, the offer for WAPI's at the lowest price on the 'net is still on! Leave a comment on the blog or the Blue Collar Prepping Facebook page.

Recap

• The only things ordered this week were 3 packs (5 each) of  Sting Kill ($11.54 from Amazon).

As always, if you have comments, suggestions or corrections, please post them so we all can learn. And remember, Some Is Always Better Than None!

NOTE: All items tested were purchased by me. No products have been loaned in exchange for a favorable review. Any items sent to me for T&E will be listed as such. Suck it Feds.

Gun Blog Variety Podcast #49

Here's Episode 49 of your weekly GunBlog VarietyCast!

Included in this week's episode:

• Adam and Sean tell you what podcasts we listen to. We listen to a lot of podcasts. You should too. But listen to us first!
• Erin Palette talks poison plants with a quick primer on disease prevention in Gotham City.
• Even Nicki Kenyon will eventually bow to peer pressure. You've been asking her to talk about Iran, so she finally does.
• Our Special Guest, Reverend Kenn Blanchard tells us about this one time he found himself in deep, deep water and needed a miracle.
• Barron B considers the Ashley Madison hack and what could have motivated it.
• And Weer'd points out how the anti-gunners have gone beyond their usual lies and have started slandering the rest of us.

Thanks for downloading, listening and subscribing. Like and share us on Facebook, and don't forget to tell a friend.

Listen to the podcast here.
Show notes may be found here.

A special thanks to our sponsor, the Law of Self Defense. Use discount code "Variety" at checkout for 10% off the best legal self defense training you can get.

Poisonwoods and Death-Apples

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

Pop quiz: How many "poison" plants are there? And by that I don't mean plants which are poisonous; I mean the ones which cause contact dermatitis after touching them?

Answer: More than you think.

Last week I talked about good survival television and mentioned Naked and Afraid. One of the reasons I specifically added that show to my article is because it brought to my attention the existence of several poisonwood species of which I was previously ignorant. Everyone knows about poison ivy, and most of us who've been to summer camp or been in the Boy/Girl Scouts know about poison oak and poison sumac. But there are other, lesser-known species that are no less dangerous  and some are much more so.

First, the Classics

Special thanks to Poison-Ivy.org for these amazing maps and references. Be sure to follow the links below for more information, including lots of detailed color photographs of the plant in various seasons and environments. 

Poison Ivy

Eastern poison ivy and its Western sister species grows everywhere within the continental United States with the exception of California. It covers nearly all of North America, going as far north as the Canadian territories and as far south as the mountains of Mexico. Note that there are many states where both kinds exist!

Poison ivy likes to grow near water, such as rivers and lakes. Eastern ivy can appear as a vine or a ground plant; western ivy is ground-only. Both are equally nasty. 

http://www.poison-ivy.org/eastern-poison-ivy

http://www.poison-ivy.org/western-poison-ivy

http://www.poison-ivy.org/eastern-poison-ivy

Poison Oak

Just in case you thought California was getting off lightly with not having poison ivy, let me introduce you to Pacific poison oak, which looks like it was specifically designed to bedevil Californians -- it's found all over the state, in all plant configurations, and when it burns in the state's frequent fires, the irritant inside it (urushiol, found in all of the species on this page) is aerosolized, meaning that breathing the smoke can result in harmful, sometimes even fatal, cases of rash on the inside of the lungs. 

http://www.poison-ivy.org/pacific-poison-oak

http://www.poison-ivy.org/pacific-poison-oak

Oh, but don't be too smug, East Coasters: there's also Atlantic poison oak.

http://www.poison-ivy.org/atlantic-poison-oak

http://www.poison-ivy.org/atlantic-poison-oak

Poison Sumac
The good news about poison sumac is that it doesn't exist across the entire country like the others do. The bad news is that it's much harder to detect, as it doesn't follow the "Leaves of Three" rule. It simply has an odd number of leaves, between 7 and 13, on its branches.

It also looks like a shrub or small tree -- not a vine -- and so it's harder to detect and easier to bump into. The best way to avoid it to stay away from bogs, marshes, swamps and other wetlands where it prefers to live.

http://www.poison-ivy.org/poison-sumac

http://www.poison-ivy.org/poison-sumac

And Now, the Exotics
From the above illustrations, you can see that Florida, where I live, gets all three.

Well... five, actually. 

Poisonwood

Also known as the Florida poisontree or hog gum, the Poisonwood is a flowering tree in the same family as poison ivy, oak and sumac. It can be found in south Florida (it grows abundantly in the Keys), the Bahamas, and all the way through the Caribbean. Its sister species, the chechem or black poisonwood, is found further south in Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, and from southern Mexico (Yucatan to Veracruz) to northern Central America.

http://www.sfrc.ufl.edu/extension/4h/ecosystems/_plants/Poisonwood/index.html

Poisonwoods are nasty customers. They are infused with urishiol in greater concentrations than ivy, oak, or sumac; it's practically acidic in the way it burns. In at least one instance, poisonwood sap resulted in a second-degree burn. Watch this video to see how quickly it starts affecting someone who's touched it.

Its bark looks like it is oozing sap, or has a skin disease.

For more information on how to identify the tree, visit the University of Florida School of Forest Resources & Conservation, because if you go on vacation in South Florida or the Caribbean, you WILL want to know how to identify it.

As bad as the poisonwood is, though, there's actually another tree in Florida that's much, much worse. How much worse?  The Spanish name for it has the word "death" in it.

Manchineel
The Manchineel, also known as la manzanilla de la muerte -- "little apple of death" -- will not only burn and blister your skin if you touch it, or you stand beneath it when it rains, its sap (or smoke from burning it) can also cause blindness and eating its apple-like fruits can kill you. 

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fr370

The caption for the above picture literally states  All portions of the manchineel tree are poisonous. It actually holds the Guinness World Record for "Most Dangerous Tree"! (I didn't even know there was a contest!)

Here's a first-account account of someone who ate a manchineel fruit -- a "beach apple" -- and lived to tell the tale.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/globalreset/2651266643/

Manchineel trees can be found throughout South Florida, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, Central American, and northern South America.

If you plan on going on vacation to one of those places, then learn to identify it. Not every tree will be as obligingly labeled as the one to the right.


Side Note
There's actually a sixth poison tree, the Chinese lacquer tree, which is the same genus as poison ivy, oak, and sumac. But it only grows in China, Korea, Japan, and parts of the Indian subcontinent. But as this article is already excessively long and not many of my readers will encounter one, I leave its investigation as an exercise for the curious student.

Resources

• Visit www.poison-ivy.org for lots more information. 
• Think you can identify them? Take this test and find out. 
• Get it on you? Watch this video to find out how to remove it from your skin, and listen to my podcast segment in episode 49 of the Gun Blog Variety Cast this Sunday.