National Geographic: King Rattler Page #2

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there was one thing that

overwhelmingly occupied the whole episode:

I kept thinking, "You're gonna do it.

Don't let this fear get you.

Don't panic. Keep going."

And I set my teeth, I mean,

I literally clenched my teeth,

and I said, "I'm gonna do it."

As the pain spread,

the paralysis set in,

and he still had to paddle

nearly a mile across the channel

separating him from the mainland.

Almost 30 minutes had passed.

Means knew from experience

time was running out.

I had many thoughts of my life

passing, you know, before me,

and most of all I worried about

my children and my wife,

about what they would think

if I would not make it.

And worst of all,

here I was in a canoe,

and suppose that I panicked

in the middle of the water and drowned

and disappeared and they'd never

have known what had happened to me.

So I kept that thing in mind,

"I'm gonna make it.

I'm gonna make it."

And I get all the way to shore.

So when I got on the shore,

I tried to get out of the boat,

I couldn't move my legs.

I was totally paralyzed

from the hips down.

I just threw myself over

in the boat into the water.

My stuff dumps out into the water.

I pull myself out of the boat,

and didn't bother with it;

it floated off a ways from me.

And I literally clawed

my way to my car.

When I got to the car, I had

a problem getting the key in the door,

and my car happened to have

an idiosyncrasy about opening up,

but fortunately it opened for me.

I dragged myself up into the car,

pulled myself onto the seat.

Then I found out I couldn't drive.

It's a stick shift.

So I had to grab my right leg,

pull it in, put it on the accelerator,

grab my left leg,

pull it in on the clutch.

I pushed the clutch in,

started the car, gave it some gas.

And I was able to twist and

pull it down and I popped the clutch.

I kept it in first gear and I tore off

down the road towards help

not being able to shift,

so I was in first gear,

going, "Rrrrrr," down the road.

The few minutes it took to drive

to Survey Headquarters

were an endless nightmare.

All I could do is just

turn the key off and let it,

"Chugchugchug" to a stop,

open the door.

And then I had to let myself down

onto the pavement.

The pain was like salt poured

in an open wound,

and worse, he was growing

weaker and weaker.

No longer able to drag himself

over the hot knobby pavement,

he had to roll in order to move,

but he couldn't roll in a straight line.

So he plotted a circle across

the burning parking lot to his last,

best chance for survival.

Means reached his destination only to

discover that his ordeal had just begun.

Nearly an hour had passed

since the rattler sank its fangs

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