5 THINGS ABOUT A BIZARRE SNAKE BITE

1 WHAT HAPPENED

A Texas man is recovering in hospital after being bitten by a rattlesnake’s head — after it had been chopped from its body. Jeremy Sutcliffe, 40, had to be administered with 26 doses of antivenin to try to keep him alive, having slipped into a coma when the severed head bit him. Sutcliffe and his wife Jennifer were gardening at the end of May when Jennifer inadvertently almost grabbed the snake. “It came up with its head, so I screamed,” she told The Washington Post.

2 THE HUSBAND’S RESPONSE

Sutcliffe came over with a shovel and decapitated it. Ten minutes later, he picked up the head and it bit him — not knowing that snakes can discharge venom up to an hour after the head is removed.

3 HER RESPONSE

Jennifer Sutcliffe, a nurse, immediately got her husband into the car and dialed 911 to figure out which hospital had antivenin. She learned that the nearest hospital that could save her husband was a little over an hour away, but within moments, he began losing consciousness, suffering from loss of vision and having miniseizures. On arrival at the hospital, doctors said he was going into septic shock and had internal bleeding.

4 WHAT HIS WIFE SAID

“There was three times in the first 24 hours that the doctors told me that they didn’t think he was going to make it. As a nurse, knowing what they were talking about was scary.”

5 A LUCKY MAN

Sutcliffe came out of his coma May 31 and is in stable condition. While it’s rare to die after being bitten by a snake, roughly one to two people die each year in Texas as a result of the venom.