Only in America: a man nearly dies from a Jameson’s mamba bite—that’s the snake, not the dance—gets saved by paramedics with a doctor’s approval. Then those same paramedics face the regulatory Gulag.

Welcome to Kentucky, where bureaucracy carries the venom and the bite, and heroes get punished for refusing to dance to its tune.

Word to the wise: watch your step in Andy Beshear’s Kentucky. Even the Bourbon Trail could call for snake boots.

Jim Harrison, co-director of the Kentucky Reptile Zoo, was breeding snakes for venom research. One didn’t consent. Instead of lawyering up and rage-posting, the Jameson’s mamba did what mambas do: sank its fangs into him.

This arboreal green killer hails from sub-Saharan Africa—no relation to Irish whiskey, a rival of Kentucky’s best-known export. The nope rope’s venom produces side effects that sound like a drug commercial’s fine print, and it can kill in under four hours.

Mr. Harrison was “in pretty serious shape rather quickly” after the bite, and he told the paramedics as much when they arrived.

Powell County paramedic Eddie Barnes and his partner heard the dying man say, “I’m gonna die,” and did what normal human beings in emergency medicine do: they called a doctor, got permission, and administered the lifesaving drug—the appropriate antivenom.

Result? Harrison lived. Reason prevailed. Seemingly, the moral was simple: steer clear of Mamba #5—unless you’re ready to be laid out before the night is gone.

But hold your thoroughbred horses.

Enter from stage left the Kentucky Board of Emergency Medical Services—Lou Bega style. They took one step back and crooned: “A little bit of authority’s all we need. You can’t run, you can’t hide—or we’ll take your license sine die.”

According to the board, only “wilderness paramedics” are authorized to administer snake antivenom.

Because when seconds count, Kentucky regulators would rather mollycoddle an obscure rule so arcane you could count on one hand the folks outside Frankfort who’ve heard of it.

Besides—where exactly does one find a “wilderness paramedic”? Is that an option when you dial 911—“Press 2 if you’re dying of exotic snakebite in a research zoo”?

And this is Kentucky! Would these pettifogging regulators have thrown ol’ Dan’l Boone—the rippin’est, roarin’est, fightin’est man the frontier ever knew—into jail for the folk cure: cut the bite, suck the venom, spit it away? (PSA: don’t try this at home.)

Paramedic Barnes summed it up perfectly: 

If we had sat there and let him die, then we would have been morally and ethically responsible, and we could have been criminally charged for his death. If it came down today, I would do the same thing. You cannot put a price on a person’s life. [WKYT reporting]

Hard to argue with that—unless you’re a meddling bureaucrat convinced the Commonwealth’s regulations override common sense.

And in fact, the hearing is today, September 30.

Maybe Democrat governor Andy Beshear—whose main claim to fame is that he’s not quite as weird as Tim Walz—will take some time off his overly earnest tour of the Democrat party’s mashed-cauliflower circuit to defang the bureaucracy now slithering amok.

Beshear likes to portray himself as a “moderate voice,” but that’s snake oil—and talk is cheap.

For all his braggadocio about winning the governor’s mansion in a deep red state, here’s an uncomfortable truth his press kit won’t brag about: since 1931, only four of Kentucky’s twenty elected governors have been Republicans.

And Beshear’s daddy was one of them. Nepo baby.

What, exactly, has he done to wrangle in the bureaucracy that is sidewinding into this nonsense—especially as this wilderness paramedic regulation hissed onto the books during his administration?

Short answer: nothing of consequence.

Which is fitting, considering his electoral success—much like governors in North Carolina and Vermont—is the peculiar result of a state electorate that picks executives contrary to its usual voting pattern.

He’s a blue politician in an outwardly red state, eyes transfixed on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue—like a barfly at last call, salivating for one final pour of Old Tub to finish the bottle.

Imagine how his EPA or FAA would function. Better hope there are no snakes on the plane if he’s ever president.

As Kentucky’s bluegrass paramedic overlords constrict the life out of regulatory restraint, it’s a reminder that calls for licensing board reform are growing from sea to shining sea.

And let’s face it: this regulation really bites.

Charlton Allen is an attorney, writer, former chairman of the North Carolina Industrial Commission, and founder of the Madison Center for Law & Liberty, Inc. X: @CharltonAllenNC

Image: Holger Krisp, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons, unaltered.