A POSIONOUS rattlesnake hidden among leafy plants
in the garden section of a Walmart store in Florida sprang
out and bit a man who was shopping there.
Posted on 07/14/2008 4:28:19 PM PDT by yankeedame
From correspondents in Miami
July 08, 2008 09:33am
A POSIONOUS rattlesnake hidden among leafy plants
in the garden section of a Walmart store in Florida sprang
out and bit a man who was shopping there.
The man was taken to hospital after the 30cm pygmy rattlesnake bit him in the right hand while he was looking at the plants at the store in Pembroke Pines, Florida, about 50km north of Miami.
"This is an isolated incident and we're taking precautions to make sure that it doesn't happen again," said Walmart spokeswoman Ashley Hardie.
"To ensure the wellbeing of our customers, we immediately closed the garden centre to enable animal control to do a thorough search of the area. The garden centre was reopened once we were convinced it was safe to do so."
The Miami Herald newspaper reported that the man received intravenous anti-venom treatment at Miramar Hospital and was expected to make a full recovery.
The pygmy rattlesnake's poisonous bite could be fatal...
(Excerpt) Read more at news.com.au ...
I guess they do have everything at Walmart.
First thought that went through his head after the bite:
KA-CHING!!!!
Nice thing is, he could go to the sporting goods hunting/fishing/camping dept and get the snakebite kit.
Bit by a Wal Mart rattlesnake. Man, I did not even know that Wal Mart SOLD rattlesnakes!
“Looking at the plants” with his hands in the planters? Nice try. This guy saw the snake and was messing with it. I can almost guarantee it. Almost all rattlesnake bites are on the hands because boneheads think they can grab them before they bite.
Wasn’t there a story like this a few months back where someone got bit by a snake in the garden section of wallmart? Scary.
Ping!
I don’t know about that, they strike at heat, and with the noise and vibrations going on in the store it was probably very on edge. If he reached down to pick up a plant (okay, its a guy so that in itself is suspicious I grant you) I can see it striking his hand without a warning.
Maybe he tried, and got lost on the way?
If he had been shopping at Sam’s Club he would have been required to be bitten by at least a dozen rattlers...you know...bulk...ahhhh....nevermind......
He could lose his arm
I re-read the article— I didn’t know Wal-Marts had garden sections. So maybe he was looking through plants and the bite was undeserved. My bad.
As opposed to a non-poisonous rattlesnake?
FL: Man bitten by Walmart rattlesnake
Snake Bites Man in Walmart
Pygmy Rattlesnake Bites Man At Wal-Mart
Store Closed After Snake Bite
POSTED: 6:47 am EDT July 25, 2006UPDATED: 2:51 pm EDT July 25, 2006A man was treated with anti-venin after he was bit by a pygmy rattlesnake in the garden department of a Central Florida Wal-Mart, according to Local 6 News.
Officials said a man was reaching into a plant Monday at a Wal-Mart in Sanford, Fla., located on U.S. Highway 192 when the snake bit his hand.
The man was treated and should recover from the bite, Local 6 News reported.
Tuesday, Wal-Mart assured customers that Central Florida stores are safe and that it was an isolated incident.
Trappers captured and killed the snake after the store was closed.
Watch Local 6 News for more on this story.
Somebody call PETA,,the snake was provoked!!!
I didn’t know they had rattlesnakes in China...
the same happened to a woman shopping at home depot in either woodland hills or thousand oaks several years ago.
I killed one of these with my weedeater once...fortunately, I came upon it in January when they are a bit more lethargic than at other times of the year...
As long as the victim is in reasonable health, the bite from a pigmy rattler while unpleasant, is not fatal.
Short ones. Yes. 1/2 off sale.
Possibly. Climbers are struck on occasion from putting hand in the wrong crevice. People have been bit reaching into a pack or sleeping bag. If he was removing a planter from a display, I could see it happening.
It's kind of outdoors.
I’m surprised they didn’t charge him with shoplifting for trying to get out without paying for the venom.
It’s a jungle out there.
Uh uh...it's because they can be invisible; find the Western Diamondback ** in this picture; I was six inches from touching him (inspecting the little pepper plant under the dwarf citrus) before he moved and I realized he wasn't just part of the rock tree ring: 
**(Hint: dead center - and once this little ball was strung out, it was right at six feet)
(I'm especially goosey about rattlers right now; in the last two weeks, I've offed three....the last one with help of Animal Control because I missed my strike and he found a good defensive position, which is a good because that bastard turned out to be a Mojave Green -- rare around here, but 15 to 50% more venemous than any other snake in North America........and extremely aggressive.)
No more morning or evening barefooting around the yard....
That's gotta be very unusual in Wisconsin that time of year...even here in the low desert of California, you'll never, ever see a rattler between October and maybe late March - they're hunkered down hibernating.
Indiana Jones and I have one thing in common.
“I hate snakes!”
The artcle is confusing, was it a pygmy rattlesnake or a WalMart rattlesnake that got him, they mention both.
And if any given rattler wants the WalMart badging, what sort of extra qualifications does he need? And what are the benefits, does he get to slink into the hamster cage after lights out?
Ditto that me....I should be used to 'em by now, but I still scream like a little girl if one surprises me, and I get entirely too "tensed up" as I go after them.
My thinking is that if one ever gets out of sight, it's gonna haunt me and wifey forever, so I HAVE to off it....and then, of course, I go into Charles Manson/Benihana overkill mode....I make DAMN sure, all the while wishing one of the neighborhood roadrunners would come by and just give us a great snake killing show instead.
By way of example, this is the same one pictured above, post mortem, after I'd hung it out back for the ravens or roadrunners...I know the slashes and gashes don't show up real well, but you'll get the idea. The head was buried in the yard, BTW. 
Wonder what its like to own a Walmart. I think I’d sell it.
Sorry but that’s not a just a Diamondback. It’s a subspecies known as the Rock Diamondback.
NO!! You twit. Wake up and smell the coffee. The sob took the rattlesnake to the plant dept. dropped it in a plant and then let it bite him. Sure beats the cut off finger in the soup ploy. Wish I’d thought of it.
We find rattlers around here occasionally. Actually, we live on what’s called “rattlesnake ridge”, which we didn’t find out until we’d moved here.
=8-O
The last one we killed was curled up at the end of our porch, right where I would have stepped on it had I not been looking. His head ended up buried in our driveway by our “snake charmer”.
Yeah? Well I had one crawl into my AC compressor fan and cost me $350. Well at least it was a very small rattlesnake.
Calm down duuude. Get yourself a snake hook and one of those neat little squeezy/grabber thingies and catch em up. I like to make belts outa them. First couple get your adrenaline going but after that it’s like squishing a scorpion on the living room hardwood. Which we do a couple times a week here. Buck up Bunky.
And then there's the bite on the leg from stomping on the one that you didn't see after the sun went down. I've had a sock full of venom twice from that bone-headded manouver.
Thanks for the pings.
I no longer live in WI...you could say that I am a refugee from political oppression there...or their socialist tax policies...
No snakes yet in the houseplants I import from FL, but I’ll be looking more carefully now, LOL!
(Some really BIG spiders, though. Eeek!)
For the most part, ours hang around in the sunken shower....visual inspection is the order of the day every morning.
We live in Wild Kingdom, but thankfully Marlin Perkins is nowhere to be seen.
They didn't used to, but now...well...outsourcing, ya know.
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