Cousin's ex-husband was picking up pecans in the yard in Brazoria County. Saw a bit of tail sticking out of a small leaf pile and thought it was a skink. He tried to catch the skink.

It was a coral snake. Got him between the thumb and forefinger.

He was in the hospital awhile, maybe a week?

He said that when the venom started really hitting him while they were rushing him to the hospital, it felt like his entire body was on fire.

Thumb by a cottonmouth as a dumbass teenager attempting to free handle one. Had its head pinned and was grabbing behind his head with a less than ideal grip. Thumb sort of slipped and his right fanged tagged me. Immediately let it go and waited about an hour with no adverse side effects and didn't tell my parents until about 5 years ago LOL. Pretty sure it was just a dry bite.

That was the last venomous snake I attempted to handle - which I am honestly shocked it took that long for me to get tagged. Now I'm not that worried about catching them but will catch a non-venomous snake in a heart beat to this day.

This thread gives me the freaking willies.

milner79 said:

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This thread gives me the freaking willies.

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I had to go outside and around the house tonight to check an ac unit with my flashlight. I put on my work boots after reading this thread earlier. I've never worn boots around my yard before.

Mas89 said:

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milner79 said:

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This thread gives me the freaking willies.

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I had to go outside and around the house tonight to check an ac unit with my flashlight. I put on my work boots after reading this thread earlier. I've never worn boots around my yard before.

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I get you! I go barefoot a lot and have gone outside at night to do various things. I bet I have stepped on a water hose 10 or 12 times over the years. When I do, I immediately think SNAKE and get airborne!

I nearly got bitten by a copperhead about five years ago. We had a long time member get off our deer lease. He had three stands on the place with feeders and left them all. He still has family on the lease and I suppose that is why he left everything. We had a drawing among those who were interested in his locations. I was drawn for one of his tripods. I had not been on that area of the lease much and spent 3 or 4 hours trying to find the tripod. Come to find out, I had driven my side by side within 20 or 25 feet of it three times. It was nestled up against a couple of oak trees and had a lot of yaupons that were directly under it and off to the side which hid the legs to the point you had to look hard to see them.

The next weekend I went out to do a closer inspection of the tripod and feeders. I decided to do some trimming of some of the oak limbs that were overhanging the top of the tripod. I reached for the ladder with my right hand, had a saw in my left hand. Immediately, I looked slightly to my left and saw a copperhead on top of a yaupon limb, just on top of those bright green leaves. I nearly pissed my pants, he wasn't two feet away. I have seen cottonmouths and water snakes up on cypress tree branches that are a couple of feet above the water, but have never seen a copperhead up off the ground like that, only on the ground. Any time I climb up that tripod, I do a major inspection of the various limbs!

Closest I ever came was helping my g-father. We'd set a trot line in a decent sized creek, but the banks were so overgrown that we used a little John boat to check the lines.

What I was unaware of if that cottonmouths will climb small trees that overhang the water to sun themselves and provide an immediate exit strategy into the water if needed. So were checking the lines and our little boats drifts under one of the overhangs....

The snake drops right into the boat and all h*ll breaks loose. I'm spazzing, using an oar to keep it away from me while reaching for the little .22lr Ruger pistol we used to dispatch turtles caught on the line.

He's yelling "don't shoot it! Don't shoot it", and the boat is tipping back and forth so much we both almost went int the water. He dispatches it with an oar, while scenes from the Lonesone Dove river crossing flood my memory.....followed my "don't tell g-ma".

ShouldastayedataTm said:

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Wow bit by a coral, that does not often happen, and to be envenomated as well. Hard with corals and how small their mouths and what not are, buddy got real unlucky for all that to fall in place perfectly to happen. About the only place on the body a coral can tag.

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If you knew this guy, you would feel bad for the snake.

You also wouldn't be surprised it happened to him, specifically.

Shooting a hole in the boat wouldn't have been smart.

milner79 said:

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This thread gives me the freaking willies.

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I felt something pop my calf pretty good. I looked under my desk and it was just an extension cord. Might go home at lunch and put on my snake chaps.

"hypothetically", I might have been a salty little freshman
"hypothetically, we might have been out in the woods as a fraternity pledge
"hypothetically,, we may have come across a copperhead, and pledge "country boy" may have been tasked with retrieving sed snake with a forked stick and a trash can.
And hypothetically, may have later stolen white mice from the lab in a cooler to feed sed snake that lived in the house with us and struck every time we fed it with leather welding gloves - so technically, I have been struck by a snake.

Again, hypothetically....

Snakes never really scared me. Just know what they can and can't do. Now, if a flying cockroach takes off, I will scream like a little girl.

For what it's worth, if you are within reasonable driving distance, make a b-line to HCA Kingwood Hospital. They are well known for their snakebite treatments and antivenom.

one safe place said:

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Mas89 said:

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milner79 said:

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This thread gives me the freaking willies.

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I had to go outside and around the house tonight to check an ac unit with my flashlight. I put on my work boots after reading this thread earlier. I've never worn boots around my yard before.

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I get you! I go barefoot a lot and have gone outside at night to do various things. I bet I have stepped on a water hose 10 or 12 times over the years. When I do, I immediately think SNAKE and get airborne!

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Really putting a crimp in my evening yard pee.

My wife called me all in a panic one day and said there was a rattler in the garage. She had heard some buzzing and thought one of the cats had a cicada. Anyway it was a four foot rattler underneath our riding mower in the garage. She was in the back yard looking over the gate. I started walking through the garage to get a shot gun and she said... you're not going through the garage are you? She was terrified. Anyway she met me in the house and I started to go through the garage door with my shotgun and same thing... you're not going through the garage are you?

I decided to play a trick on her and as she came up from the back yard I handed her a broom. She said, what's that for? I told her I wanted her to push the snake out from underneath the mower so I could shoot it. Of course she wouldn't do it. Spoiled city girl.

Walked up on a cottonmouth near a creek bed when I was around 10. I was about to set my foot down when it popped its head up with that wide mouth and hissed. I spun around and didn't stop running for a long time. That is still a very vivid memory nearly 30 years later.

If any human being in this world should have been bitten it is my dad. It was very common in my youth to be driving down the road and see a rattle snake. He would without fail stop the truck and get out to catch it. I still don't know why he was so fascinated by them.

The closest I saw him to being bit:

I was hauling round bails from the pasture that I had bailed them in. I was living the life in an Allis Chalmers 7010 with A/C and a radio! I pull up to where we were stacking bails and Dad and the "boys" were waiting on me. I see the "boys" start running and chunking rocks. Dad comes running through them and grabs a rattler by the tail. He starts swinging it over his head. The "boys" are now on top of round bails and watching.

Dad is walking around with this puzzled look on his face swinging a rattlesnake over his head. He finally just slings it down on the ground as hard as he can. Somehow, the snake is dead. When asked, Dad had always heard the old tales about being to snap a rattlesnake's head off by popping it while swinging it. He made the mistake of picking it up with his left hand instead of the right and he claimed it threw him off.

I had never heard of that, Although I had heard of hitting them in the head with the Hondo of a rope.

Closest I came was stepping on one while feeding my show pigs. It was a little chilly and he was sluggish and I think that saved me.

The other was in Virgina. We were lining our driveway with logs. I picked up/cradled a log and felt something wiggle under my arms. When I threw the log off a beautiful grey/tan copperhead was flying with it. He was huge compared to the copperheads I had seen in Texas. Once again cold weather saved me.

I am not a big fan of snakes.

Had a couple of experiences within a few years of each other.

The first happened while in school. I enjoyed going out for evening runs and would typically hide my house key behind a water spigot on the side of the house. Returning one evening, I reached for the key only for it to drop in the grass below. Blindly rummaging around to find it, I got zapped on the foot by a rattlesnake who had been resting directly beneath. Dry bite, but nonetheless, thought I had meet the maker!

Episode 2 happened a few years later. After graduating, I worked for a consulting company that did mostly pipeline RoW work. On this particular project, we were mapping existing pipelines in south Louisiana, and found ourselves in a boggy slough in about knee deep water. My co-worker had high-centered his 4-wheeler on a cypress knee, and in the process of trying to free his ride, had something (watersnake or cottonmouth) completely wrap himself around my buddies leg. Neither of us can remember how we got out of that situation as I think we both partially blacked-out. All I know is that we somehow got ourselves and our 4-wheelers out of the bog and safely onto land.

Episode 3 happened a few months later - same job, but now in central Mississippi. We were blazing down a right-of-way towards a valve station. There was a pretty significant dip where it was clear that seasonally the area was likely under water, but it was fairly dry with no standing water. Quite picturesque in some ways with large towering oaks and what we thought was spanish moss. Low and behold, the moss was actually what I came to understand was most likely some sort of brown water snake. Hundreds of them! As we went under the tree's, these things started dropping from the sky like some sort of horror movie! Still have nightmares. I quit a few weeks later for thankfully a better opportunity!

Was drunk AF at the beach in my ute and walked over the first dune to pee. Peed on a rattlesnake. Didn't get bit though, pretty sure it's because I didn't have the length for him to jump up at ole One Eye.

Did sober me up pretty quick though, and I came flying over the dune with my pecker hanging out.

Well our son decided to drive himself to Colorado last summer to go fly fishing...
He calls me with "Hey Dad, do you remember how we learned in Scouts to deal w/a snake bite "...
I guarantee he never saw the rattlesnake until the damage was done...

jpistolero02 said:

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Pretty sure I had to clean my pants out.

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I've come close to three. One sunning in mid-Spring North Central Texas in the '80s; another a few years later near a creek; finally, a third on a trail in the Great Smoky Mountains NP. Didn't get bit by any of them but my shorts didn't survive!

I honestly don't care what people say: I shoot venomous snakes on sight.

I went to a funeral for an old lady that had grown up In Papalote, Texas. During the depression when she was a kid they had a game called "jump the snake"