-Peter: I haven't spoken to Williams about epipens, but as you'd expect, I've spoken to quite a few people about them lately. If you keep venomous snakes or have anything to do with them, get yourself an epipen and keep it handy, including when you're in the field. You're mad not to. If you go into anaphylaxis you can be dead within 10 minutes. If I was with someone who was going into serious anaphylaxis and I knew medical help was more than 5-10 minutes away (which is almost always going to be the case in the field), I wouldn't hesitate to use the epipen on them. Sure, there's a chance the epipen might kill them, but it's a heck of a lot smaller than the chance of them being killed by anaphylaxis, and you're highly likely to save their life. If it's clear the anaphylaxis is going to kill them, why wouldn't you give them (or yourself) the shot?
As for the paramedics, yes, they do sometimes unethically give our peoples' information, which is absolutely disgusting. When you've just been through something which is serious enough to make it into the news, you and your loved ones are probably going through a pretty traumatic time and the last thing you want is the media exposure, let alone people knowing about the details of your symptoms, especially when they are not even correct. In my case it wasn't all that bad as I made a full recovery extremely quickly and wasn't concerned about my own health or safety by the time the reports were out. The media reports were the most difficult thing for me and my loved ones to deal with, especially when the paramedics who were on the scene exaggerated the story in front of the television camera, presumably so they'd look 'cool' ("Look at me, I was there when something interesting happened!"). When someone exaggerates a story about the fish he caught while talking to his mates at the pub, it really doesn't matter. When he exaggerates your symptoms on national television, your friends and family go into panic. When I see paramedics on the news now, talking about peoples' personal details, I understand the problem in a way which had never before ocurred to me, and I see how serious it is.
Contrary to popular belief, I didn't want to be in the spotlight, I was refusing to communicate with the media for hours, until the reports were going out about me being close to death/soon to die after being "attacked" by a snake, etc etc. At that point I saw that it was necessary to show people that I was completely fine, happy to bounce around, joke and laugh with camera crews, and that the bite was my fault entirely, rather than me being the poor helpless victim of a monster we should all fear and kill.
The vultures who listen to the emergency frequencies and give out personal details are worse, but sometimes the paramedics are deplorable. I'm sure it's only a very few bad apples spoiling things though, and most of them are brilliant people doing a brilliant job, out of the spotlight.
If not for anaphylaxis, if I was in the same situation again I would drive myself to hospital rather than get an ambulance, partly to save taxpayer dollars and partly to prevent the story escaping. Not only is the media attention damaging to people, but giving them a reason to fear calling 000 is a serious safety issue. I certainly would never, ever criticise someone for choosing to take an ambulance though. At the end of the day, staying alive is the most important thing.
Gillsy: I see you still can't spell, but it's good to see you're capable of letting other people help you with it
