Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, July 30, 1993 TAG: 9307300247
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: ELKTON LENGTH: Short
Dean, 43, of Rockingham County, survived the encounter. But the snake wasn't so lucky.
Dean returned home Wednesday after several days in intensive care at Rockingham Memorial Hospital for treatment of five rattlesnake bites, including several to his tongue and lip. Those occurred while he was biting off the head of the snake, described as more than 3 feet long.
"The doctors say he's a walking miracle," Tina Dean said of her father, whose mouth was still too swollen to talk.
"The swelling has gone down. He's doing pretty well" but is able to eat only soft foods and liquid, she said Thursday.
His daughter said Dean was riding his bicycle in the Fox Mountain area northeast of Elkton when he saw the rattlesnake in the road Saturday evening.
The snake bit him after Dean jumped off his bike and tried to catch it. He was bitten again on his right hand as he rode to a neighbor's home with the snake.
He continued on to another home about a half-mile away where he decided to bite off the snake's head "because it bit him first," Tina Dean said. That was when he received the bites to his tongue and lip.
By that time, his hand and face were swelling, and a nephew and friend took him to the Elkton Emergency Squad. Dean was then taken to the hospital by ambulance.
Will he use a stick in his next snake encounter?
"Probably not," his daughter said.
by CNB