HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — When Joseph Ricciardella noticed the snake within the street, he stopped his automotive and tried to assist it keep away from getting run over.
The tried good deed landed him in a Connecticut hospital in a medically induced coma after the timber rattlesnake, which is uncommon within the Northeast, bit his hand when he threw a shirt over it and tried to select it up, mentioned Brittany Hilmeyer, his former girlfriend and the mom of his daughter.
Hilmeyer mentioned Ricciardella referred to as her on Sunday to say he had simply been bitten and was driving to the hospital. His voice sounded odd, like Donald Duck, she mentioned. She mentioned it occurred as Ricciardella was driving from a park in upstate New York to his house in Torrington, Connecticut, about 25 miles west of Hartford.
It isn’t clear precisely the place the encounter occurred as a result of he hasn’t been capable of communicate intimately but to household and buddies, she mentioned.
Ricciardella, 45, a father of 4 who runs a landscaping enterprise and has no medical insurance coverage, went into cardiac arrest, was resuscitated and was later positioned right into a medically induced coma after being flown from a hospital in Torrington one in Hartford, Hilmeyer mentioned. Docs introduced him out of the coma on Tuesday, however he remained intubated and sedated due to swelling from the venom, she mentioned.
“It was shocking that, like, anyone would attempt to decide up a rattlesnake,” Hilmeyer mentioned by telephone Thursday. “But it surely doesn’t shock me in the identical sense as a result of he form of all the time did that. If he noticed an animal on the aspect of the street or within the street, he would attempt to cease and get them out of the street. Or, if he was in his Fb teams and he’d see they’ve animals that need assistance, he would take these animals.”
“It’s loopy. It’s one thing you’d by no means suppose goes to occur,” she mentioned.
The timber rattlesnake is one in every of two venomous snakes present in Connecticut — the opposite being the northern copperhead — and is extraordinarily uncommon, in accordance with the Connecticut Division of Power and Environmental Safety. The snake is listed as endangered and is illegitimate to kill or acquire. Rattlesnake bites are additionally extraordinarily uncommon within the state, the company mentioned.
Ricciardella’s brother, Robert Ricciardella, mentioned they grew up in Waterbury, Connecticut, and spent weekends in upstate New York, the place they used to play within the woods and catch snakes, lizards and different critters — however by no means a rattlesnake. He mentioned he was stunned that his brother tried to assist one and was bitten.
“He does fairly know higher,” he mentioned.
Joseph Ricciardella’s household has arrange a GoFundMe web page that has raised greater than $5,000 thus far to pay his medical payments.
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