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<p>AKE ELSINORE, Calif. (AP) — A Lake Elsinore man may have to lose his hand after he picked up a rattlesnake in order to take a selfie with it.</p> <p>KCBS-TV reports that 36-year-old Alex Gomez snatched up the snake Monday at his family's ranch. The snake bit his hand which swelled. His neighbor called 911 and he was transported to an area hospital.</p>

Recently, though, a San Diego man thought it might be an idea to take a selfie with a rattlesnake. Some might think this has all the sense of taking a boa constrictor clubbing. However, as KGTV in San Diego reported, Todd Fassler picked a rattlesnake out of the brush and thought he might memorialize the event. The snake had other ideas and bit him.....His medical expenses could be described as expensive. KGTV’s Dan Haggerty tweeted Fassler’s bill — for $153,161.25. Of this, more than $83,000 was for “pharmacy.” His case reportedly depleted the antivenom supplies at two local hospitals.

A mom and her son had quite the scare when the young boy was bitten by a rattlesnake while walking along a bike trail. Jaclyn Caramazza, who is nine months pregnant, was anticipating a trip to the hospital sometime this month. But she was expecting the visit for the birth of her newborn, not for a snakebite scare. On their way back from a stroll on the Folsom Bike Trail, her 4-year-old son Vinny accidentally stepped on something brown. Something coiled up. “It wasn’t dog poop,” Vinny said. “I know, it was a snake,” his mom said. Knowing that something...

A 74-year-old Belmont man is recovering after he was bitten by a rattlesnake in his garage. Edmund Pieret said he was bit Thursday when reaching for one of his tools. "I reached down to pick up one of the tools, now he must have been underneath where that red box is," Pieret said. "I figured it was a spider or something like that must have bit me, and then I heard a rattle." Pieret was rushed to the hospital for treatment. On Friday he was nursing a swollen hand. "I was not expecting it at all," he said. "I've never...

A woman says her American bulldog and two puppies were bitten by a diamondback rattlesnake near the steps of her rural central Florida home. One of the puppies died following the Tuesday afternoon attack. The Ledger of Lakeland reports the mother dog Maisy and the other puppy, named Tundra, are being treated with anti-venom at a Winter Haven animal hospital.

Chad Cross was hunting for turkey in the woods in Alabama when a venomous pit viper rattlesnake bit him in the lower left leg. Nervous and scared, the Montgomery resident attempted to calm himself and slow his heart rate so as to prevent the quick spreading of the deadly venom throughout his body. He then made a move that saved his life. He pulled out his $10 snake-bite kit. WSFA has the incredible story:

Participants in the annual, three-day Sweetwater Rattlesnake RoundUp in Texas caught more than a ton of snakes, organizers said. More than 30,000 people attended the event, they said, with visitors including people from as far away as China, Israel, Germany, England and Australia.. The roundup paid $13-per-pound for captured rattlers, featured about 2,160 pounds of rattlesnakes being weighed, the most since the 2,168-pound total in 2010, the Abilene (Texas) Reporter-News reported Monday. "The importance of this is to control the snake population and to inform the public," Texas Game Warden George Pasley said. "You see all these snakes here and...

A "serpent-handling" West Virginia pastor died after his rattlesnake bit him during a church ritual, just as the man had apparently watched a snake kill his father years before. Pentecostal pastor Mark Wolford, 44, hosted an outdoor service at the Panther Wildlife Management Area in West Virginia Sunday, which he touted on his Facebook page prior to the event. "I am looking for a great time this Sunday," Wolford wrote May 22, according to the Washington Post. "It is going to be a homecoming like the old days. Good 'ole raised in the holler or mountain ridge running, Holy Ghost-filled...

LEWISTON, Idaho – A man said he reached down to pick up a stick lying in the gardening aisle of a Wal-Mart in Idaho, only to discover that it was a rattlesnake that then bit his hand. Mica Craig said he was shopping in the outdoor garden department of a Lewiston store when he was bitten Saturday. The 47-year-old man from Clarkston, Wash., says it latched onto his hand and that he screamed and managed to shake loose the snake and stomped it to death. The Lewiston Tribune reports a bystander drove Craig to a local emergency room. Craig said...

HUNTERS AND FARMERS AND THOSE WHO LIVE IN THE COUNTRY.....TAKE HEED.... My fellow friends and family, We have killed 57 rattlesnakes on two separate ranches this year. 24 @South bend & 33 @ Murray, since mid May. Not one has buzzed! We provoked one fair sized boy with a stick and he coiled & struck at the stick a couple of times before he buzzed up and rattled. The purpose of this explanation is that I have been hearing the same from fellow ranchers and hunters in regards to the lack of warning with rattlesnakes. I had lunch with a...

DETROIT, - A dog has paid a heavy physical price for protecting his owner from a rattlesnake, his Michigan owner says. Kodi, a 3-year-old Samoyed, saved Brenda Lacroix of Davisburg from an Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake during a June walk in Shiawassee Basin Park in Springfield Township, Lacroix told the Detroit Free Press. "This thing flew at his face," said Lacroix, a retired veterinary technician. "It was 3 1/2 feet long and the width of my arm." Lacroix rushed Kodi's sagging body to her former employer as his face started to swell, and then the dog passed out. While one veterinarian...

Unlike other family members, 7-year-old Logan Coleman doesn’t have an aversion to snakes. Clutching a handful of the plastic toy reptiles, he says his favorite is the venomous African black mamba. He likes rattlesnakes, too, he said. Except for the one that bit him Wednesday in his Spring Arbor Township backyard in a rare encounter with Michigan’s only venomous snake. “Logan screamed and said, ‘Mom, you have to come see what bit me,’ ” his mother, Kimberly Coleman, recalled Friday while standing near the family’s swing set where they found the snake coiled in the grass.

SWEETWATER — The three waited almost an hour in line — just to taste fried rattlesnake. “It’s like people would say, ‘You came all the way out here and didn’t try rattlesnake?” said Herman Aguirre, who was trying the West Texas delicacy for the first time. His niece and her husband, both from El Paso, had to wait a few minutes once they reached the concession stand inside the Nolan County Coliseum at the Sweetwater Jaycees World’s Largest Rattlesnake Round-Up. While Aguirre’s group was told to wait just a few minutes, concession workers inside said they were cooking the meat...

TAMPA - John Agan was doubly unlucky today – he got bit by not one but two venomous snakes. Doctors think one was a coral snake and the other was a pygmy rattler. The bites happened when Agan was walking his dog at about 1:45 p.m. outside the Masters Inn at U.S. 92 and State Road 579.

Giant Rattlesnake Slithers Its Way Into St. Augustine Townhouse Community ST. AUGUSTINE, Fla. -- The trappers who caught and killed a giant rattlesnake in St. Johns County said the snake was 7 feet 3 inches long. Experts said it's one of the biggest rattlesnakes they've ever seen. The rattlesnake slithered its way into Tuscany Village, a St. Augustine townhouse community, over the weekend. Someone spotted the Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake, now being called Rattzilla, near homes off State Road 16 and Interstate 95 and called police. Police then called Brandon Booth, a professional trapper. Booth said that when he pulled up,...

"Access Hollywood" executive bitten by rattlesnake Editorial Note: While this story is outside our local area, we thought it important to remind people to be careful of rattlesnakes. Sunday, July 12th, 2009.Issue 28, Volume 9. An "Access Hollywood'' executive bitten by a rattlesnake -- just in time to put her out of action on the Michael Jackson story -- is expected back at work tomorrow after a nasty reaction and two-week recovery that required 22 vials of antivenin, she said today. Sharon Smith's disastrous encounter with the cold-blooded viper occurred June 27 at a roadside rest area on U.S. 101...

Woman Without Fear By Daniel Mannix I FIRST heard of Grace Wiley when Dr. William Mann, former direc­tor of the National Zoological Park in Washington, D.C., banded me a picture of a tiny woman with a gigantic king cobra draped over her shoulders like a garden hose. The snake had partly spread his hood and was looking in­tently into the camera while his mis­tress stroked his head to quiet him. Dr. Mann told me: “Grace lives in a little house full of poisonous snakes, imported from all over the world. She lets them wander around like eats. There’s been more...

Hello Everyone, I happened to see a bald eagle's nest and rattlesnake yesterday, a very positive sight as it reveals that the bald eagles are recovering. You can see them here: http://www.flickr.com/dmathew1

McLEAN, VA (NBC) - A Virginia man is recovering after finding a deadly surprise in his luggage. Andy Bacas was hospitalized after a snake he said he found in his suitcase bit the palm of his hand. Arlington County Fire and Rescue was called Bacas' home after the snake bite. Bacas, an Arlington County Public Schools coach, was taken to Inova Fairfax Hospital, where he spent the night. He is in fair condition. Bacas had just returned from a bus trip to a camp in Summerton, South Carolina with the Yorktown High School boys' crew team he coaches, and the...

ARLINGTON, Virginia (CNN) -- A suburban Washington man was bitten Monday by a rattlesnake that found its way into his luggage, a fire department spokesman said. An Eastern diamondback rattlesnake appears in a photo from the U.S. Geological Survey. "He felt a sharp pain, brought his hand out and saw the bite," said Benjamin Barksdale, assistant chief and chief fire marshal of the Arlington County, Virginia, Fire Department. Andrew Bacas zipped his bag shut and called 911 at about 9:30 a.m. ET, the official said. "He was conscious and alert but a little anxious," Barksdale said of the victim. The...