How to remove a leech

 Well, we had some fun at the cottage this weekend. Some friends and family stopped by for a planked salmon and potluck supper.

Planked salmon is my favourite way to prepare salmon. It’s a very simple, traditional way to cook a whole fish when feeding a large crowd. It is also delicious.

There were some kids there and it was hilarious fun catching or I should say trying to catch frogs, ambushing the unsuspecting with blowguns made from Touch-me-not stems and generally enjoying a day on the river bank.

The kids spotted a salmon jumping in the pool in front of the dock, an osprey, a tree frog or peeper, a leopard frog, numerous bullfrogs, salmon Parr, bullheads, minnows and unfortunately… some leeches.

For someone unfamiliar with leeches it is a disgusting experience to have one attached to you. For a child it can be horrifying.

Leeches don’t like bright light or fast moving water so it is unusual to have to deal with them at the river cottage.

They prefer still or very slow moving water and the semi-darkness under docks or rocks where they attach themselves to stationary objects and wait for their prey. We got into them while hunting frogs in the calm water under bushes along the bank.

When a child has a leech on them or three as in this weekend’s events it is pretty scary so the first thing to do is react calmly and start to work removing the leeches immediately.

You should use one of your hands to hide the leech from the child’s sight and have anyone who is contributing to the child’s unease run and get things for you.

The folk remedies for removing leeches are salt, alcohol, a burning cigarette or smoldering broom straw.

The best way to remove one is to slide your fingernail around the place where the sucker is attached and try and get the seal broken.

Grab the fat end to detach the rear sucker, grasp the leech and pull gently which will raise the skin around the attachment point.

Keep sliding your nail around where the mouth meets the skin until you can pry it off.

This can take a few minutes which can be pretty anxious for a child so by all means sprinkle some salt, wave around the burning embers and mutter instructions to your assistants to keep the child distracted and calm.

Remember to place your hands so that the child can’t really see what’s going on - not just to calm them but because leeches secrete an anticoagulant, the wounds though tiny will bleed profusely.

I think most of the mumbo-jumbo about salt and cigarettes is to distract the squeamish while you rid them of the nasty critters.

In my experience on oneself, just grab the leech and pull it off.

They are not like a wood tick and don’t leave any bits behind.

Clean the wound with an anti-septic though and cover it up with a band-aid, as much to stop the bleeding as to keep it clean.

I’ve never heard of any complications from a leech attack here in the temperate north but at the first sign of streaking, fever or other symptoms of infection consult a doctor immediately.