Serpent-handling pastor dies hours after he's bitten by a RATTLESNAKE..

UK Daily Mail ^ | May 30, 2012 | Thomas Durante

[C19fan]

A Pentecostal reverend known for preaching with the help of a rattlesnake coiled around his arm lost his life when one of the creatures suddenly bit him. Mack Randall Wolford, pastor at the Full Gospel Apostolic House of the Lord Jesus in Matoaka, West Virginia, died hours after receiving the deadly bite on Sunday - the day after his 44th birthday. Wolford’s father, who was also a serpent-handling pastor, died in the same way nearly 30 years ago.

[imardmd1]

(cont’d)
,,, I will declare what He hath done for mu soul.

[Tarantulas]

[Miss Behave]

I like to take long walks out in the desert...but not by myself--I use the buddy system like I was taught when I was in Brownies. ;-)

[Scoutmaster]

Apillar - sorry. TN was let off the hook this time.

It could have happened at any one of a number of churches on Sand Mountain, Alabama. Drove through there once with a youth minister on the way to her grandparents' home. She'd grown up there and gave me the narrative as we wove around past small churches.

"That one."

"That one."

"Not that one."

"That one."

"Not that one."

[Vendome]

Wow. Glad your son is okay.

[Shimmer1]

It was touch and go if he’d lose tissue, but he did not. Thanks!

[steve86]

You can't depend on the rattle. People accidentally step on them and get bit not infrequently around here. Indeed, for the unfortunate Walmart shopper a month or two ago in Clarkston, WA (not far from here), who picked up the baby rattler in the garden section thinking it was a stick, did not get to hear a rattle.

A worse story yet is that a cobra climbed over the leg of my wife's dear sister in India while she was sleeping, but then slithered away uneventfully when the sister awakened with a start. It is not that unusual there to find a cobra in the house. There was never any threat display.

[firebrand]

I hear rattlesnakes are now found in upstate New York. A copperhead appeared in a Massachusetts basement.

[Loud Mime]

When I was a kid we lived in the Canal Zone (Panama); the more poisonous snakes didn’t rattle and they were damned hard to see unless they moved.

Never in my life have I wanted to handle a dangerous serpent; it’s like handling a loaded gun while having a parkinson’s attack.

[Vendome]

Is that your son on your homepage that was biten?

[Shimmer1]

No, that’s son1, this was son3 (i have 4)

[Vendome]

Lucky girl.

When you coming back out?

[Shimmer1]

I’ll let you know. I don’t have plans to yet. I normally avoid the summer because i fly standby and the summer is just too crowded. Those twins on my page are coming to see their dad for June, so I know it won’t be June because all my spare time will be seeing them!

[Shimmer1]

I am blessed, aren’t i. (beaming)

[ErnBatavia]

I keep birdshot (”snakeshot”) in my Ruger .22 for just that purpose. It’s too dang rocky around here to shoot at the ground with a real bullet - the ricochet would wreak havoc.

[meadsjn]

Darwin +1; religious fruitcakes -1.

[Miss Behave]

Havoc is right. I rarely chamber it in .45. It’s a little heavy but I’m ready for whatever else might want to “bite” me. ;-)

[Vendome]

Look forward to seeing you maybe this winter.

PM me where you live again.

I’m thinking of a little road trip before my shoulder operation.

[Jane Austen]

It was ten or more years ago that I read of a snake bite death at a church in northern Indiana.

[samtheman]

What did you shoot the rattlers with? A shotgun? Just curious. I imagine they aren’t that easy to hit if you don’t have a shotgun.