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Bad idea: Owner kisses rattler

 
Published Nov. 20, 2002|Updated Sept. 4, 2005

A man who was showing off for friends by kissing his new rattlesnake was bitten on the lip and nearly died.

Matt George, 21, was hospitalized in critical condition after the incident Sunday. By Tuesday, his condition had been upgraded to serious.

George was showing friends the snake he had caught on a recent trip to Arizona. Holding the 2-foot snake behind the head, he kissed it.

After the second kiss, the snake bit him under his mustache. He dropped the snake on the kitchen floor, and friend Jim Roban killed it with his cowboy boot.

Sheriff's Deputy Steven Johnson said he watched in the ambulance as George became limp and his eyes rolled back in his head. Unconscious, George was flown to a hospital in Portland, Ore.