COASTAL COURIER (Hinesville, Georgia) 02 February 05 Man bitten by snake at store (Patrick Donahue)
A call to Liberty 911 was placed at 7:26, reporting a man had been bitten by a snake in the store's lawn and garden center.
Liberty County Animal Control officer Linda Cordry said the snake was captured and taken with the man, whose name has not been released, to the Liberty Regional Medical Center emergency room.
"We got a plastic container and got the snake in it," she said.
The snake, a 10-inch long baby timber rattler, was eventually destroyed.
Wal-Mart store officials could not be reached for comment.
Just how the snake got into the plant the man was handling is also a mystery. Cordry speculated it might have come from the work being done on Frank Cochran Drive Extension, adjacent to the store, if its habitat there was disturbed.
It also might have been in the plant to start with and the warm weather in early January threw off its biological clock and ended its hibernation early.
"With the unseasonably warm temperatures, they wake up," Cordry said. "Usually, they stay underground until it warms up."
A snake regaining consciousness in winter does happen, she explained, but in these circumstances.
"This is not an unheard of incident," Cordry said. "Sometimes, when little old ladies move their plants inside into the heat, a snake in the plant will wake up."
Man bitten by snake at store