Further down the rabbit hole: Thursday night I accidentally slept with an Arizona Bark Scorpion, the most venomous scorpion in North America1. I was alone in the dark in Kanab Creek, deep in the Grand Canyon without a satellite phone or rescue beacon, so what transpired was… “neat.”
I cowboy camped at Showerbath Spring, too close to the spring. Dumb, dumb, dumb. When I rolled over in my sleep at 9:40pm, I was jolted awake by the most awful thorny sensation It felt like I’d been whipped with highly electrified and very sharp barbed wire. JAB JAB!
I frantically pulled off my shirt, and suddenly there it was on the ground next to my left hip. It was a little wheat-colored slip of a thing, just like in my worst cowboy camping (tent-less) nightmares. Looks can be deceiving: bark scorpions are small and thin, and honey-colored.
I was in such shock and so horrified I just watched feebly as it crawled into the bushes right by my cowboy camp setup. I had grabbed my cook pot to smash it with, but failed to kill it cuz I was just sorta in… disbelief.
The second scorpion I ever saw was the one that stung me, less than 12 hours after being warned about such stings. And my first scorpion sting happened to be by “America’s most toxic scorpion.“
Lucky me.
What should I do? No idea. I’d been stung on a spot of my back near my armpit I could neither see nor reach. I worked as a registered nurse in Portland Oregon and Burlington Vermont, where scorpions just… aren’t a thing! I didn’t know if I was supposed to remove a stinger, and anyway–I couldn’t see the sting site! I had no idea what to do! Was I going to die!? Was this sort of pain NORMAL?
I did what my gut told me to do: I packed up camp in the dark and hiked 1/2 mile upstream in the Kanab to a new spot, away from that awfully rude bedfellow. In hindsight the whole Showerbath Spring area is wet, and scorps are riparian-loving, so the only way I’d actually be safe(r) is with a netted tent.
I had no tent. But I stacked two layers of polycro plastic separated by rocks, and slept on that. If anything small approached, it’d more likely get stuck between the two layers. Right? Anyway, what would be the chances of being stung again?
Not knowing if I was going to die or what, but knowing that already I was in a world of hurt, I set alarms to wake myself all night at 15-45 minute intervals. I’d make sure I was breathing ok, and that I could wake up. Which ultimately makes no sense, but it’s funny what panic does to logic.
By midnight I could not walk without difficulty because my eyes could not hold position or focus and my arms and legs were numb and had severe electrified pins and needles. The neurotoxin in a bark scorpion sting causes smooth muscle spasms.
During the night I stumbled like a drunk, crouched over, just to make it a few feet to pee. One of those times, I fell over and peed myself. I realized I could no longer see. I was having sneezing fits and snotting heavily. I didn’t really need the alarm to wake me up. I was scared.
According to Ranger Bridgehouse at the GCNP North Rim ranger station, most people would have GI upset. My loss of vision and extreme pins and needles was a bit unique, he thought. According to the Brave Wilderness “Bite Sting Index,” I was suffering with just about the worst insect sting possible (top #2 of 22 listed).
When I took this video at 5am, it was hard to even turn on my phone and press the right buttons. Any pressure on my skin was excruciating, especially anywhere near the sting site.
But I managed to pack up camp and return down river to where a few hikers were camped. I sat near them while they packed up and painfully made myself tea with useless, excruciating “hand stumps.” I drank as much water as I could manage. I finally grew the courage to ask for help from a French woman camped at the Springs. She said it looked like two stings on my back, and that it was just read. She thought I should camp an extra day until I felt better but I had other plans: hike 20 miles to the next water source.
The first 8 miles of those twenty miles to get to Willow Springs2 were very, very painful. Imagine walking eight slow miles with those kind of pins and needles you get in your legs sometimes when you sit wrong on the sofa too long. Where it really hurts to stand up to get something from the fridge? I couldn’t pick a good line through the Kanab riverbed cobbles because my unsteady eyeballs. My eyeballs were literally shaking in my eye sockets. So those first 8 miles were torture. Each time my foot came down on a rock, even a smooth rock, even a small rock, electricity shot through my body. My backpack rubbed my scorpion sting–delightful. This was torture! Had it been smooth trail it might have been better. Maybe. I’m not sure it could have been worse, though.
After 16 hours the pain at the sting site resided enough so that it wasn’t agonizing to put on my backpack. After 48 hours I still had some intense pins and needles in my hands and feet (but went most the day without them), but I was much fully recovered. I hope I never ever get stung by a scorpion ever again. Ever. Never ever3.
- Bark Scorpion stings can be deadly to children, pets and the elderly and immune compromised. ↩︎
- Uranium-contaminated, but delicious and wetting. ↩︎
- At least not stung while alone and in the middle of nowhere without any way of calling out for help. I think I managed to dial that Bite Sting Index right up to TEN, thank you very much. ↩︎
