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by adamio 4379 days ago
Extra steps are always best in an emergency...

~~~

Spider: Have a painful bite on the house!

User: "Spider say cheese!"

User: "Amazon Phone is this spider poisonous"

Amazon Phone: Searching. This Spider does appear to be poisonous.

User: "Amazon Phone call Uber 911"

Amazon Phone: Calling Uber 911

Uber 911: Can you collect the spider to take to the ER?

User: "Yes, I'll do that"

3 comments

To my knowledge, there aren't any North American spiders that would cause a "seconds count" type threat to your life. I suspect the way this normally works today is:

  Black Widow: Have a painful bite on the house!
  User: "Ouch!"  *slap*

  [one hour later]

  User: "Oh my god, I am in unimaginable pain."
  * User is driven to the hospital.
Or

  Brown Recluse: Have a painful bite on the house!
  User: "Ouch!"  *slap*

  [several hours later]

  User: This is starting to swell rather
        disturbingly, and smarts quite a bit.
  * User drives to their doctor
With snakes it's probably another mater. If a snake I could not identify bit me, I would be calling 911 first, and taking pictures afterwards before the ambulance arrived. If it's not a snake that I recognize as safe, then I wouldn't be taking the risk that it wasn't a venomous pet that escaped (since I can recognize the venomous snakes native to my region).
Identifying (or capturing!) the venomous spider or snake that bit you can mean the difference between them identifying the right antivenom or not. So, yes, surviving the trip to the ER is unaffected, but it might mean the difference between losing a life, a limb, or not.
That isn't even remotely true.

Many venoms have large delays, days even sometimes.

Which is why you should go to the ER or Doctor regardless