A hiker suffered a fatal snake bite in Tennessee after picking up a rattlesnake in Savage Gulf State Park, officials told Fox News Digital.
According to Matthew Griffith from the Grundy County Emergency Management Agency, it is thought that a Timber rattlesnake was involved in the situation last Friday. The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency identifies Timber rattlesnakes as “the largest and most dangerous of the four venomous snakes in Tennessee.”
“According to witnesses the hiker had picked the Rattlesnake up resulting in a bite to his hand,” Griffith said in a statement provided to Fox News Digital. “It is believed that the hiker had an allergic reaction, however full details of [the] actual cause of death have not been released.”
Griffith said multiple agencies responded to the scene about a half-mile from a trailhead and initiated CPR. The hiker was taken to a hospital where he “later succumbed to his injuries.”
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency said the “Timber Rattlesnake is the largest, and the most dangerous, of the 4 venomous snakes in Tennessee.” (Scott Somershoe/TWRA)
Griffith also told Fox News Digital that it hasn’t been determined yet as to why the hiker picked up the snake.
The Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency said the Timber rattlesnake is “a large, heavy-bodied snake (36.0 to 60.0 inches long) with a large, triangular head, vertical pupils, and the characteristic rattle at the end of the tail.”
A coiled Timber rattlesnake is seen in the forest of Cumberland Falls State Park in Kentucky. (Jim Lane/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)
It added that its “Prey is killed by a venomous bite, in which the venom is injected by fangs located in the snake’s mouth.”
