The X-ray photo shows of a man's right hand, who has chopped off his right index finger after being bitten by a poisonous snake. However, the doctor told him it is "totally unnecessary." Photo: Screenshot from Sina Weibo

After being bitten by a "five-step snake," (the distance a victim can walk before death - according to folklore) a man bravely chopped off his right index finger, a move doctors later told him was "totally unnecessary."

Even worse, he didn't preserve his separated digit, which doctors said they could have reattached. 

"I was panicked, so I simply cut off my finger to save my life," said the man surnamed Zhang, 60, who was working on a mountain in East China's Zhejiang Province on Sunday when he was bitten.  

"The snake is not always as venomous as people think," Yuan Chengda, Zhang's doctor at Hangzhou Hospital of Traditional Chinese Medicine in Zhejiang Province, told the media.  

Yuan added that a bite from that type of snake is usually not fatal if treatment is given within six hours of the bite. If the bite is small, people can recover by squeezing out the venom and disinfecting the wound. 

Hospitals in Hangzhou have treated 1,200 patients with snakebites this year, and about 30 percent of patients administered incorrect first aid, according to Hangzhou's local media.

Global Times