Cautionary tale: Beware rattlers on riverbanks

By CHANDRA JOHNSON of the Missoulian
Rio Ebinger knew his dad was in trouble when he asked Rio where his hat was.

“It was on his head,” Rio said. “And he asked for it when we first got into the raft.”

Eric Ebinger and 10-year-old Rio were camping along the Flathead River between Dixon and Perma last Saturday when Eric was bitten by a rattlesnake.

“I was squatting on the bank leaning my fishing pole against a rock and felt a pinprick on my thigh,” Ebinger said Tuesday, as he elevated his swollen and purple leg on a nearby chair. “I was just wishing and praying for it to be over.”

Trying to remain calm, Ebinger got into the raft while his son loaded their gear and began rowing the almost half mile across the swift current of the Flathead to their car.

Ebinger fashioned a tourniquet out of rope and tried to deal with the waves of tingling pain, nausea and abdominal cramps as the venom took hold and made his leg swell to the size of two watermelons.

“It just felt like pins and needles,” Ebinger said. “You can’t imagine the abdominal cramps.”
At the helm of the raft alone, Rio Ebinger began to cry.

“When Papa first told me he’d been bitten, I just stood there wondering if it was a dream or a nightmare or something,” the boy said.

But Rio stayed the course across the river by himself for nearly an hour, even having to stop at an island in the river to tow his father and the raft upstream against the current.

“I don’t think most 10-year-olds could have done that,” Ebinger said. “I’m so proud of my son.”
After crossing the river and reaching the highway, they called a friend in Dixon to take them to Clark Fork Valley Hospital in Plains.

Amazingly, this was not Ebinger’s first brush with disaster while enjoying the outdoors.
Before Rio was born, Ebinger narrowly escaped a cougar attack while surveying trees in Idaho for the U.S. Forest Service.

“I was sitting and when I turned around there was this face,” Ebinger said. “It came at me, muscles bulging, three or four times before I whapped it on the nose with a big stick. When I came back, everyone said I was white as a ghost.”

Despite the most recent close call, the Ebingers say it will not stop them from camping this summer.
“I love snakes. I’ve played with them my whole life,” Ebinger said. “I want to go back to that campsite; it was a good fishing hole.”

But Ebinger hopes people will learn from his experiences.
“Respect nature,” he said.

“And watch where you’re sitting,” Rio added.

Chandra Johnson is an intern for the Missoulian newsroom. She can be reached at 523-5302 or at chandra.johnson@missoulian.com.