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Arizona Man Who Played With And Planned To Eat A Rattlesnake Gets Bit Instead

The 49-year-old was rushed to the hospital where he survived to tell his tale.

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A man in Arizona is lucky to be alive after he was bit not once, but twice by a rattlesnake as he was showing the snake off to friends before he was going to cook and eat the reptile.

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Victor Pratt, 49, of Coolidge was celebrating his child’s birthday when a rattlesnake appeared in his yard and he decided to show his friend’s how to capture, and then cook, the venomous snake.

"When the kids saw it, I grabbed it. I showed them how to catch it and I was playing with it like little kids do. This is how you play with a snake. I wasn't thinking. I was showing off like I always do and this time it got me in the neck," Pratt told Fox 10.


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Pratt was able to hold the snake for a while before he lost his grip of the snake’s head and the snake bit him twice. Pratt, who had been bitten before when he was 19, immediately knew something was wrong.

"I said, 'We gotta go now,' because I knew what was going to happen," Pratt said. 

Pratt was taken to the hospital where he was given antivenin treatment, and he is lucky to be alive, Dr. Steven Curry of Banner University Medical Center  told Fox 10.

“When patients experience face bites with injection of venom, as in this case, our experience is that if an airway is not established in the first few minutes, it usually takes 15 to 30 minutes at the most that patients don't have much of a chance to survive," Curry said.

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As for Pratt? He isn’t going to play with venomous snakes again.

"Ain't gonna play with snakes no more," he told Azcentral.com. 

It has been suggested that young male men get bit by rattlesnakes more than any other segment of the population. Usually they are "playing" with the reptiles when they get bit, like this guy in Lake Elsinore, CA who got bit, and this guy in San Diego who tried to take a selfie with the venomous reptile. Some folks don't understand what venomous means, or they choose to ignore it.