Forget what you think you know about sucking out snake venom or using snakebite kits, tourniquets, ice, heat and even electricity.

Doctors say if you're bit by a rattlesnake — and that is the only poisonous snake you're likely to encounter in New Mexico — the best advice is to get to a medical clinic with access to antivenom as quickly as possible.

Steven Seifert, medical director of the New Mexico Poison and Drug Information Center at UNM Hospital where Bob Ross was treated earlier this month, says commercial extractor kits remove 1 to 2 percent of the venom.

"A percentage or two of the total venom load out is not going to change the clinical outcome," he said. "So the real danger of the suction devices is that they delay getting to definitive management — that's treatment at a hospital with antivenom."

Because rattlesnake venom is an anticoagulant, cutting into the area where the fangs penetrated and trying to suck out the venom could cause severe bleeding, tissue trauma or even infection, said Justin Hazen, a Tucumcari emergency-room physician who treated Ross initially.

"Those have all been shown to be not effective and can do more harm than good," he said. "Whenever you get that tissue swelling ... creating a cut can cause more tissue damage and release more of the venom in there. ... By the time you cut it and suck and everything, the venom is already traveling."

Both doctors — who are legally prohibited from speaking publicly about Ross' or any other individual case without written permission — advise snakebite victims to remove rings and other jewelry to allow for swelling and allow someone else to transport them to a hospital while they lie down. If possible, they say, avoid walking or using any mode of transportation requiring physical exertion.

Applying a tourniquet could block critical blood flow and cause additional damage, Seifert and Hazen said, although in rare circumstances, medical professionals might use a loose tourniquet to stop an allergic reaction or to slow the lymphatic flow.

"Applying heat, cold, cutting into the wound, applying electricity — none of those things are effective at neutralizing venom," Seifert said. "At worst, they add additional injury to already injured tissue."

Both physicians said antivenom — also spelled antivenin or antivenene — is the best treatment for snakebite. The old form of antivenom — produced by injecting a horse with a small amount of venom and then capturing its urine with the natural antibodies — often caused allergic reactions. The new serums — produced without using animals — cause fewer allergic reactions, but are expensive. A single bottle costs $4,000 and a patient might need six or more.

Although the state Department of Health does not track snakebites, Seifert estimated 100 people are bitten every year in New Mexico, with 80 treated at UNM Hospital and the others deemed "dry" bites or so mild that no hospitalization is required. Hazen said eight or nine snakebites have been reported so far this year in the Tucumcari area, but only two were severe enough to require antivenom.

Less than 1 percent of snakebites result in death worldwide, and the occurrence is less in New Mexico. Only one New Mexican is known to have died of snakebite in the last five years. Deming "snake wrangler" James Bear, 37, died in El Paso on Jan. 29, 2008, one day after he was bitten on the thumb by a rare Canebreak rattlesnake — one of 300 snakes he kept in his home. He reportedly had an allergic reaction, complicated by previous bites.

According to Amphibians and Reptiles of New Mexico by William Degenardt, Charles Painter and Andrew Price, New Mexico has seven types of rattlesnakes, but only two are native to the northern half including Santa Fe — the western rattlesnake and the diamondback. The book says far Southwestern New Mexico has a few coral snakes and poisonous Gila monster lizards, but the state has no native copperheads or cottonmouth water moccasins, venomous snakes found in the Southeast.

Rattlesnakes are active from April through October, often feeding in the early evening, but they have been known to emerge from their burrows during warm spells in winter. Humans are most often bitten on the feet or hands when they disturb the snakes' cool lairs while walking, climbing or reaching for something on the ground.

Seifert said if you're bitten, you don't need to bring him the snake because that only increases the chances of another bite. "You're not food. Even our biggest snakes are not looking at you as potential sources of nutrition," he said. "If you happen to startle a snake, backing away is the safest approach. They're generally not going to chase after you if you're not a threat."

"The hotter the season, the more angry the snakes are," added Hazen. "People who get bitten usually have some sort of mood-altering substance, like alcohol, in their system. ... It kind of decreases their reasoning as to why they shouldn't be messing with a snake."