Geographic Cone Snail
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What the **** is That?
So you're on vacation in Australia, drinking a Fosters, chasing dingos away from your babies and arguing about what things are and are not knives. You sign up to go on a scuba tour of the Great Barrier Reef. After a quick tutorial on what you can and cannot touch that you didn't even understand (they are speaking Australian after all), you're down in the ocean exploring the reef. One small and particularly beautiful shell grabs your attention and you pick it up out of curiosity. That's when you feel a pinch on your palm.
Congratulations, you've just been stung by one of Australia's deathly toxic residents.
What's this Funny Feeling?
That funny feeling is cocktail of toxins that were just lanced into your hand by a harpoon. Cone snails can fire off those harpoons in any direction and they use them to paralyze fish (at which point they then eat them--alive). Fortunately, you're too big for the cone snail to eat. Unfortunately, the toxins still affect you in a terrible way. Depending on which species of cone snail you picked up, you're either feeling the effects of your nervous system being ****ed to hell or you're suffering this delightful symphony of shit, per Wikipedia:
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You'll need both of these. And a bucket. And several small miracles.
"Paresthesias of the lips and tongue are followed by sialorrhea, sweating, headache, weakness, lethargy, ataxia, incoordination, tremor, paralysis, cyanosis, aphonia, dysph.agia, seizures, dyspnea, bronchorrhea, bronchospasm, respiratory failure, coma, and hypotension. Gastroenteric symptoms are often severe and include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. Cardiac arrhythmias may precede complete respiratory failure and cardiovascular collapse."
And you probably haven't even made it to dry land yet.
Will I Be Alright?
That depends on how competent the people around you are. There is no cure for the cone snail's venom, and treatment is simply based on how long your rescuers can keep you alive while your body pisses, shits and vomits the toxins out. If the people saving you haven't already fled the scene of your body exploding from every orifice, their CPR is simply meant to keep you breathing until you've shat the last little bit of venom out.
