Suck the venom out of a snakebite

What actually happened

Every element of the old protocol fails on its own terms. Venom enters the lymphatic and vascular system within minutes and is not sitting in a pocket waiting to be extracted. A 2004 study by Michael Bush and colleagues using a commercial extractor found it removed a trivially small fraction of simulated venom while causing tissue damage at the site. Cutting adds a wound, bleeding, and infection to a limb already facing necrosis.

The tourniquet is the one that costs limbs. It concentrates venom in the tissue distal to the band, where hemotoxic venom does its worst damage, and when released can dump a bolus into circulation. Pressure immobilization bandaging is standard for some neurotoxic elapid bites, notably in Australia, but it is not the same thing as a tourniquet and it is not recommended for North American pit viper bites.

Antivenom is the treatment, and it works, which is why the entire job of first aid is to get the patient to it without adding injuries. The Wilderness Medical Society and the American College of Medical Toxicology have said this for two decades. If you were taught the snakebite kit with the razor and the suction cup, you were taught a procedure that makes outcomes worse.