Kevin Murray, a 21-year-old from Pennington, New Jersey, was bitten by a copperhead snake while out on a hike on Aug. 5.
Murray said he was out hiking after dark and didn’t see the copperhead until it was too late, the Florida News Times reported Tuesday.
LUCKY TO BE ALIVE
Kevin Murray was hiking in Hopewell Township when he felt a sting. He looked down and there was a venomous copperhead snake, very rare for New Jersey. He spent three days in the hospital and is now recovering. @6abc pic.twitter.com/GNNSeqFrMz— Beccah Hendrickson (@Beccah6abc) August 10, 2021
“I don’t know much about snakes. I just thought it was a garden snake or something that didn’t really matter,” Murray said, according to the Florida News Times.
After being bitten, Murray took a picture of the snake, and once he made it to the hospital, doctors knew exactly how to help him, the outlet reported. (RELATED: Escaped Python Slithered Into Toilet And Bit Its Owner’s Neighbor In The ‘Genital Area’)
“They took me to the ICU and monitored my heart rate to make sure the poison hadn’t spread to my heart,” Murray said. He reportedly spent three days in the hospital for the snake bite before being discharged.
Associate Medical Director of Philadelphia Poison Control Dr. Robert Bassett said that venomous snakes are rare in that part of the country, according to the Florida News Times. Copperheads are only found in the northwestern part of the state in the Piedmont, Highlands, and Ridge-and-Valley regions, according to the New Jersey Agricultural Experiment Station.
A 65-year-old Austrian man was bitten by a python in July while sitting on his toilet. The five-foot snake had escaped his neighbor’s apartment and slithered through the drains, as previously reported.