Again, please don't use aspirin in any manner on a child. Reye's syndrome is rare, but very very bad. It can occur as a result of any form of aspirin exposure -- even topical. Reye's syndrome is usually associated with a viral syndrome, but there is way to know that a bee-stung child is not also brewing a cold.

I've been taught to use meat tenderizer for jellyfish. Mud also I've heard is good for bee stings.

As for sting rays, up and down the coast of Southern California, hospitals DO use warm water to help. Make it as hot as the person can tolerate (test it like you would a baby bottle, drop some on your inner wrist). Never been stung personally, but my patients seemed to tolerate it well.

Of course, by the time they get to us, I wonder how much of the venom is still in the affected area?

During a seizure it's virtually impossibe to do anything. It's very hard to put anything between their teeth and if they get a lock-jaw, it's just not possible.
You could also injure yourself or break the victims teeth.

The best thing to do is to make sure the victim doesn't hurt himself to objects aroud them, and wait for the seizure to stop.
Then you can put the victim into the recovery-position to prevent blood from going into the airway (if the victim remains uncounsious ) and try to stop the bleeding.

Back in '92 during my EMT classes we were taught that placing a stick or anything between the PTs teeth was more likely to cause damage. This damage to the teeth is caused when you have to pry open their jaws. If you have to pry open the jaw you are more apt to get your self bitten. I was speaking with the local fire marshal (who spent 20+ years driving the bus) and he has never seen or heard of someone in a seizure biting off their tounge. Car accidents yes, seizures no.

Can anyone actually working the streets in an EMS capacity comment?

Ok. I'll probably give up on seizure for now
http://www.epilepsy.com/epilepsy/firstaid_tonicclonic.html
But that's the official version. All these officials are too cautious for themselves, who wants to be sued for giving a not 100% safe advice to the not 100% normal people? But the real ill people are smarter:

"Hi mickey

in reading all of the accounts of tongue-destruction I was surprised to see that nobody had mentioned that "auras" before seizures often give enough time for the sufferer to put an appropriate-sized object in the mouth to save the tongue.

My husband suffers from epilepsy and had chomped his tongue repeatedly for years before he started carrying around a rolled up bandage in his pocket. He usually gets it into his mouth before the full-blown seizures occur.

Now, sometimes it doesn't do a perfect job and there are small pokes through the tongue. But the damage is nothing compared to what he was doing beforehand - a lot less blood!

Just make sure the roll of bandage you use is wide enough so you won't choke on it. We use a standard roll of gauze, about 6inches wide and 2 inches thick; then wrap in duct tape for durability (this was his idea, I thought it was softer without). He places it sideways, like a bar to bite down on; as the seizure takes hold, he grinds down on the bandage bar instead of his tongue. He carries it everywhere with him.

K"

More terrible stories about tongue biting are here:
http://ehealthforum.com/health/topic16513.html

BTW: It's very rare that people swallow their tongue (if you don't caunt a wrong guedel-airway insertion),
but a cause could be that the small piece of tissue under the tongue (we in The Netherlands call it the tongue-belt, but do't know how you call it in the US), that connects it to the bottom jaw tears off.
When that occurs, it's usually seen in soccer-matches when a player gets a very hard ball into his face, resulting in the tongue-belt breaking, not during a seizure.

Once again, don't place anything between their teeth, make sure they don't injure themselves to surrounding objects, and when the seizure is over, put the victim into the recovery-position.

That's about all you can do as a first-aid provider in a seizure... You could hurt yourself and the victim by inserting a bite-block during a seizure... If the victim does it himselve before a seizure, that's fine, but a first-aid provider shouldn't do it.

After the seizures end, place him into the recovery-position an when victim regains counciousness, you must have them lay down for about 10 minutes. If they stay uncounsignous for longer than 10 minutes, they have additional injuries or if a seizure is followed by another seizure (status epilepticus), you should call 911.

While maybe slightly off the topic of seizures, EMT's usually carry oropharyngeal airways to prevent the tongue from falling back and blocking the airway. Some refer to this as swallowing the tongue. Same result, compromised airway...

OBG, a oroharyngeal airway is the same thing as a guedel airway (their also called mayo-tubes). They prevent the tongue from falling down into the airway, but if you insert them in the wrong way, you block the airway even more.

"...but if you insert them in the wrong way, you block the airway even more..."

True, that is probably why we received a lot of training/re-training on measuring and inserting...

I'd have to agree; I've never even heard of it. The occasional bloody tongue, but never actually severed.