Powell resident Jhett Schwahn, 19, is thankful he always wears long pants when he hikes. Earlier this month, it might’ve saved his life from a rattlesnake bite.
On July 8, Schwahn and his girlfriend were hiking down from the summit of 8,123-foot Heart Mountain in northwest Wyoming when Schwahn was suddenly bitten by a rattlesnake in the late afternoon hours. He heard no rattle from the reptile that pounced out from a bush near the trail.
The Powell baseball player’s pants mostly blocked one set of the snake’s fangs from penetrating his calf, just above his hiking boot.
“I was able to jump and swing my leg back around right when I saw it come out of the bush,” he said. “I think that combined with wearing pants is what saved my life.”
Schwahn recently graduated high school and has a lot to look forward to in life. His American Legion baseball team, the Powell Pioneers, are having a great season and are a strong contender to win their second straight state title in the Class A division.
Schwahn is the team’s starting catcher. His coach Jason Borders considers Schwahn one of the team’s biggest leaders and a player he “loves to death.”
“It’s tough to have Jhett gone,” Borders said. “He’s pretty much the heartbeat of the team.”
Although Borders had given his team the day off on the day of Schwahn’s hike, the coach joked that it “wasn’t the rest I meant.”
Schwahn said his teammates have been checking on him everyday, and the entire community of Powell has supported his family through the trying times with cooked meals and check-ins.
Schwahn plans to play football at Rocky Mountain College, in Billings, Mont., this fall where he’ll continue his athletic career at quarterback.
The Bite
Schwahn said the snake was the “picture perfect rattlesnake,” likely an adult as it was very large in size.
His first reaction was to try and shoot the snake with his gun in order to stop it from also biting his girlfriend, Macey Cranfill, who was about 100 feet above him on the hiking trail -- and wearing shorts.
The two had become separated when Schwahn started jogging down the mountain, which he said was likely what made the snake feel threatened enough to bite him without a warning rattle.
“It didn’t have any time,” he said.
At first glance, Schwahn said he wasn’t even sure if the snake had broken his skin as he didn’t see any blood collecting where the snake had bitten.
After giving up on finding the snake, he noticed that he had started to bleed around the site of the bite, at which point his lips began to go numb.
Schwahn immediately knew that walking the four miles down the mountain wasn’t an option, so he called up emergency services and family members.
An emergency dispatcher instructed him to sit down and to stay as still as possible, “because the more that you move the quicker the venom goes through your system,” Schwahn explained.
He also did his own research on the internet with his phone.
First, he started pressing out some of the excess poisonous venom from his skin, the liquid collecting in a puddle of yellow-clear ooze on the surface.
“They were pretty sure that I squeezed out at least some of the venom that was in my leg at that point,” Schwahn said.
Gone Numb
As he and his girlfriend waited for a rescue, Schwahn also did his best to conserve his energy as they prayed for his life.
They received a call about an hour later and were informed that a rescue helicopter was on its way.
But the helicopter ended up having some trouble finding the pair, causing Cranfill to have to grab Schwahn’s t-shirt and swing it around wildly to catch the attention of rescue staff.
Controlling his breathing and doing everything he could to prevent his body from going into shock, Schwahn started to notice his whole face going numb.
It wasn’t long before he was no longer able to talk without his lips and face swelling, mostly having to rely on hand signals to communicate with his girlfriend.
“I couldn’t only say about five to 10 words before I couldn’t talk anymore,” he said. “Which was really freaky.”
Around the two-hour mark his chest started to tighten.
“That’s when I knew that if I didn’t get help soon it was going to go downhill pretty fast,” Schwahn said.
It was about two to two and a half hours in that the medivac arrived. Remarkably, the air crew was able to find a place to land just about 100 yards below where Schwahn was resting, which he described as a “miracle.”
By that point, Schwahn was numb all the way from his legs to his belly button.
Responders cut off his pant leg and marked the area of the bite that was starting to swell. Soon after, a search and rescue crew from Powell showed up and placed Schwahn on a bodyboard.
If the snake had got a better grip on his ankle, it’s possible Schwahn wouldn’t be here to tell the story today.
Life Moves On
After being taken to West Park Hospital in Cody, Schwahn was given enough anti-venom to help soothe the bite about four hours after being bitten.
The next three days were pretty rough, he said.
Although he was stabilized, Schwahn still had to undergo hourly check ups through the night and into the next day to measure his leg and keep it elevated as much as possible to help the swelling go down.
“So I didn’t get much sleep,” he said.
Since the incident, Schwahn has been walking with crutches to get around.
Schwahn is optimistic that he could be cleared to walk without assistance by this weekend and even more likely, play baseball again by next weekend.
Borders, his coach, is a little more pessimistic about that timeline, mentioning how the catcher’s calf was still pretty swollen and black on Saturday.
“But if anybody can get back it’s him,” Borders said.
Next week is the state tournament, where the Pioneers will aim to defend their state title on their home field.
If they make it to the championship game, Schwahn will go immediately into fall camp for football the very next day up in Billings.
He said Rocky Mountain is still fully committed to having him play on the team, although they indicated they may have to have him sit out his freshman year because of the injury.
“The way things have gone, I think I’ll be pretty well to go by fall camp time,” he said.
All in all, it’s been a wild ride for the young man and a lesson he likely won’t soon forget about the fragility of life. His life is already slowly returning to normal as he visited his girlfriend’s cabin and went to church this weekend.
“I had a lot of people come up and give me hugs and say they were praying for me,” he said. “It’s been really touching to see how many people have reached out in this time.”
Leo Wolfson can be reached at leo@cowboystatedaily.com.
