Shoot, my browser crashed so I can't reference the article I was reading. It was actually something from a Department of Defense site on snakebite. The article had collected some interested stats on snakebites and might help put this tool into some perspective.

There are roughly 7,000 snake bites a year in the US, and 15 fatalities. So, if you're bitten, there's a 466 out of 467 chance that you'll live. Not bad odds, and I doubt that many of those people had a Sawyer around.

The article also mentioned that about half of bites by snakes are "dry" bites, where no venom is actually injected (it's not clear if this figure includes non-poisonous snake bites or is limited to bites by poisonous varieties). That's a very high proportion of "harmless" bites. The article was mentioning something about how defensive bites are more likely to be dry, compared to when the snake is trying to actually hunt and kill some prey.

Here's a disturbing stat--about 3,000 of those 7,000 bites happened when someone was handling or otherwise bothering a snake. Most of these bites occured on the hands and forearms. Most bites that occurred when the person was just minding their own business occur below the knee. I'm not sure how they define these groups, but it sounds like almost 40% of snake bites could be avoided if people did not try to handle a snake or just left them alone. It's gotta be partly how they define these terms because I find it hard to believe that so many people would want to try and grab a snake with their bare hands. Well, I didn't grow up in the country, so maybe I'm missing something here. I just don't see how so many people could be defined as "handling" a snake when they get bit unless it includes pet snakes, but I don't think it does.

Interestingly, the article mentioned that military medics carry antivenin. That was news to me.