During the past Turkish mountains hiking, I was stung by a scorpion. Now I will probably become Spiderman, and I will save humanity all day long. But while I am still a normal person, I have the opportunity to take a couple of minutes of time to tell about this incident. Suddenly, you will also want to become a superhero – you will know where to find a biting scorpion.It is not difficult to find an ordinary scorpion in Turkey – every evening they crawl out of their shelters and guard right on the trails. But, apparently, they do not hunt tourists at all. Therefore, for most of the campaign, we got along quite normally with scorpions. And only once did I manage to find a scorpion hungry enough to attack a person.It was in the evening. The whole day we dropped height – descended from Mount Tahtali towards the sea. Already at dusk, we passed the “botanical establishments” of Ulupinar and camped for the night not far from the river. The place, in principle, is normal, but I didn’t like it for some reason and I was thinking for a while whether to go a little more, but the people were damn tired … It was decided to stay.
In order not to fall asleep (the day turned out to be long), I went for firewood. And even managed to collect a good bundle of brushwood, when a wild pain pierced the hand lowered behind the next branch. At first, I thought that I had run into a particularly hard pine needle with my finger (fallen needles covered everything around). But needles cannot pierce a finger through and through. Namely, this is what I felt – an incredibly sharp and infinitely long needle, digging deeper and deeper into the hand (into the hand that had been withdrawn for a long time).What caused the pain, I could only guess – rummaging through the needles with a stick, I did not find anyone, and I could not find any bite marks on my finger. And thank God – so it was not a snake. So scorpion. Probably a scorpion… The devil knows.Just in case, I take out a lighter and cauterize the bite site. I’ve never dabbled in fire this way before, but this is a special case, and the pain in my finger is such that I almost don’t feel the heat from the fire. I listen to my feelings – the pain clearly spreads further. Three minutes have passed since the bite, and I already feel it in my wrist. I wonder what will happen next?Although the consciousness is absolutely calm, the heart in the chest is palpably compressed from unspoken fear…We must act. I throw firewood, I hurry to the clearing to the group. I didn’t want to create a panic, so I quietly take Sasha (the second instructor and the first biologist) and Ira (she is a doctor by education) aside and tell them the good news. We are conferring.10 minutes have passed since the bite and the pain reached the elbow. It is easy to endure, but uncertainty and inner fear are much more difficult to endure.
I remember that in the process of preparing for the campaign, I wrote out the phone number of an English-speaking doctor who lives somewhere in these parts. Fortunately, I found this number, and the mobile picked up a signal, and now Sasha and I are running together to the nearest botanical restaurant (it is no more than a kilometer away). The Doctor will be right there as soon as we can explain the name of the place.Wonderful moment. In front of a quite respectable restaurant, in the heart of resort Turkey, two smoky tourists (we) are sitting on the steps with a bored look. From time to time, vacationers tired of food appear from the feeding department, crawl to the cars, and talk in Russian. And then the show begins – a small car drives up to the restaurant, after a short dialogue, its driver removes a syringe from the bag and, under the curious glances of the public, injects me into my arm. grabs a syringe and a pack of ampoules from somewhere. This is followed by magical passes and now I’m sitting behind the wheel of a car with my hand out the window. The Doctor is standing outside….Somehow it gets delayed. In short, I was given an injection into a vein right in front of the restaurant in front of vacationers. After that, I took a ride with the doctor to the neighboring village, received a couple of blisters with painkillers and a brief instruction for use. The doctor was absolutely calm, I also calmed down, the pain stopped spreading – in general, life improved.From the explanations of the esteemed Ali Benli (that was the name of the Turkish Aesculapius), I realized that much depends on personal sensitivity to scorpion venom. If I had it elevated, then we would have noticed it long ago, and since nothing outstanding is happening, then it’s time to sleep. I was offered a choice – to stay in the village until the morning (to be closer to the medical facility) or to return back to the forest to my group. Naturally, I chose the second one (not to demoralize tourists with my absence).
Ali kindly agreed to take me back, turning to the shop on the way so that I could buy gifts for my own (a bucket of yogurt and bread).An important point – on the way back, I called my homeland, the insurance company. I warned them that an incident had occurred, that I had received medical assistance, that I would have to pay. The man from the assistance service grumbled a little about the inflated price tag (Ali announced the price of 165 bucks, primarily for an after hours and work on the road), but after talking directly with the doctor, he gave the go-ahead, i.e. confirmed that the insurance will reimburse my medical expenses.The tourists were so happy about my return that they even wanted to pour me brandy, but they realized in time and poured porridge :) My arm still hurt, but this did not prevent me from falling asleep soundly. In the morning the pain remained only in the hand. And by evening it was gone.So, just 24 hours after being stung by a scorpion, my body has fully recovered. But the memory of a red-hot sting piercing my hand did not want to leave my head for a long time. I relived that moment again and again, and not as something terrible, but as something REAL and soberingly real.
I’ll try to explain what I mean. We spend most of our lives acting unconsciously, following the rolled rails (yes, for me the rails were laid even in the mountains). Even this text I am writing while executing the standard subroutine “A little reflection on the blog.” The world is fading and the Buddhist theory about the illusory nature of everything that exists will cease to cause rejection. But there are rare moments when a sharp experience or a particularly clear “thought” suddenly dispels the fog of Maya and the world acquires the ringing reality of high-quality video advertising. That was the clarity I experienced the moment the sting of the scorpion pierced my finger.A wonderful experience, but I do not want to repeat it yet. Therefore, now in Turkey, I carefully examine all the stones, trees and other elements of the landscape that I want to touch.P.S. The insurance company kept its promise and returned the money spent on the doctor. True, for this it was necessary to write a statement with a detailed description of the situation, provide the original insurance policy and invoice from the doctor, and wait 2 weeks.P.P.S. Superman or spiderman abilities have not manifested in me yet. Apparently, we need a catalyst like a meteorite from a distant galaxy or some other nonsense.
