Sawyer Products B4 Extractor Pump Kit
2Sawyer Products B4 Extractor Pump Kit
- Extract poisons from snake bites, bee & wasp stings, mosquito bites, and more
- Utilizes dual chamber vacuum pump
- Includes bite and sting care
- Comes with 4 multiple size suction cups for various size wounds
- Includes Multiple Size Suction Cups for Various Size Wounds
- Small, reusable vacuum pump helps draw venom from below your skin in 1 quick motion; pump is easy to use with 1 hand
- 4 different sized plastic cups for use and effective suction on a variety of sting or bite sizes
- Effectiveness of the Extractor varies with the location of the bite
- Extractor most effectively retrieves venom from extremities and areas of the body outside muscle areas
- Kit includes Extractor pump, alcohol prep pads, adhesive bandages, sting care wipes, razor (for hair removal), and instruction manual
Sawyer Extractor Pump Kit extracts venom and poisons from the bites and stings of snakes, bees, wasps, mosquitos and more. The Extractor’s double chamber vacuum pump action is designed to provide powerful suction for the extraction of venoms and poisons without the need for scalpel blades or knives used in other kits. Because it’s a pump, not a syringe, it’s easy to use with one hand. When using select one of the 4 plastic cups that will best cover the bitten area and attach it to the pump, then
List Price: $ 17.99
Price: $ 9.86
Jordan Benjamin
THESE ARE DANGEROUS FOR SNAKEBITES! Only effective for removing botfly larvae…Reviewed by a snakebite specialist,
Hello,
My name is Jordan Benjamin, I am a herpetologist specializing in venomous snakes and a wilderness medicine practitioner with experience treating many snakebite patients in West and East Africa, most of them in remote health centers that pose some of the same challenges as treatment of a snakebite in the wilderness or backcountry environment in the US (supplies are limited or non-existent, the patient has a long way to go to reach a hospital, etc). I have also been fortunate to have the opportunity to train a number of individuals and groups in snakebite medicine and field management of snake envenomations in remote conditions including medical officers and corpsmen with the US military, local & international doctors and nurses in African hospitals, wildlife rangers, etc. I am including my background and real name because this issue is important to me and I stand by everything I am about to write; I want to give you all the peace of mind that I am who I say I am and not some competing company throwing out baseless accusations behind the cloak of online anonymity. Feel free to look me up online, I gave a TEDx talk on the issue of snakebite in sub-Saharan Africa last year and I invite those who doubt my identity or simply want to learn more about the issue of snakebite in the developing world to check it out. Moving on to the review…
The short answer to the question of whether or not the Sawyer Extractor can effectively remove venom from the site of the bite is a resounding no: the Sawyer Extractor and all of the other “snakebite kit” variations employing suction, incisions, electricity, heat, cold, and so forth have been repeatedly shown to be utterly ineffective at the job they are designed and marketed to accomplish. They simply do not work! The caveat it that there is one clever application of the sawyer that has been proven to work great, which is for the removal of flesh-eating botfly larvae that can be acquired in various tropical regions of the world…see “Simple and effective field extraction of human botfly, Dermatobia hominis, using a venom extractor” […]. I am afraid to say that at the moment that is the only medical situation where this device may possibly prove helpful. When it comes to snakebites, it is not only completely ineffective at removing venom from tissue following a snakebite, but may actually prove harmful and cause a serious local necrosis (think in terms of a cookie-cutter style wound forming a deep cylinder of rotting dead tissue under the site of application). This may be due to a concentration of residual cytotoxic and myotoxic venoms near the site of the bite, while the majority of the venom will continue to diffuse into systemic circulation – but since we really don’t know exactly why this happens that is purely speculation. For any interested parties, the article demonstrating this is titled: “Effects of a negative pressure venom extraction device (Extractor) on local tissue injury after artificial rattlesnake envenomation in a porcine model.” I am attaching a link to the article here: […]
There are probably several reasons why this type of first aid does not work. One issue is that the recurved fangs of vipers penetrate and inject venom deeply into the tissues beneath the skin, and the tunnel created when a fang penetrates the skin immediately collapses as soon as the fang is withdrawn. Another issue is that large quantities of venom are believed to diffuse very rapidly into different tissue compartments. This means that there is no direct route between the visible puncture marks on the surface to the area where venom was injected, and the significant quantity of venom is already well on its way. I have read the company’s testimonials and seen the occasional news stories about a snakebite victim “whose life was saved by the Sawyer Extractor” or similar device, and all too often that is a quote attributed to the physician who treated them. I don’t doubt the veracity of the quote as deeply entrenched myths and misinformation about snakes and snakebite are unfortunately as common in doctors as they are in the rest of society at this time. The sawyer extractor is popular because it provides us with an intuitively sound solution to the terrifying prospect of suffering a snakebite far from medical care, suddenly rendered utterly helpless as the venom takes effect and all we (or our loved ones) can do is wait and watch as the venom takes over. It is nothing more than a modern variation of the infamous “black stone” from Asia and Africa, a charred piece of cow bone that is stuck to the site of the snakebite and remains there absorbing fluid until all the venom has been drawn out of the bite whereupon it suddenly detaches and falls to the ground, is boiled or washed in milk to cleanse it of the venom, and ready to go when the next snakebite happens. Both of them provide the perfect optical illusion by visibly extracting some quantity of blood…
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|Robert E. Anderson
As good as it gets,
My young kids are now experts at this. Have used it on numerous unknown stings / bites – and have watched liquid come of the sting hole, and then seen less swelling / irritation. One sting in particular had my son almost crying, and he experienced immediate relief. I’ve had two employees go the hospital for (probably black widow or brown recluse) stings – and now keep this around (we have two kits).
No disrespect to the Doctor who does not approve of this and says to get medical attention, but I completely disagree with him about not using this first. We all get to live with our choices – and my way of looking at it as a mechanical engineer with a masters degree is getting some poison out is better than not getting some out – and I’ll risk a little tissue damage from the vacuum force around the wound. Additionally if I’m bit by a rattle snake in one of the places I go hiking alone I’m gonna have to walk and hour out and then drive an hour to the hospital. If thats the case getting out what poison I can (even if its only 10%) is better in my opinion than walking for an hour, driving for an hour and then asking the emergency room to fix me after the poison have been circulated in my blood stream for two hours.
Make your choice, live with the consequence – Mine is to keep and use the vacuum when needed.
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