Excess girth saves Taswell man from death
by snake bite
By Kevin Bailey, THG News
This past Saturday morning, Taswell’s Burt Morris was
preparing for a day of roasting half-chickens and slabs of ribs in his delicious
Memphis-style sauce.
What had began as an enjoyable day suddenly took a turn for
the worse. As he gathered firewood in the forested area behind his home, Morris
suddenly heard a hiss followed by a burning pain in lower right leg.
He had stepped on and had been bitten by one of Indiana’s
four poisonous species of snakes, Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen, also
known as the Northern Copperhead.
Morris, alone and with his house approximately a quarter
mile away, tried not to panic. He began walking toward his house, hoping he
would make it to the back door, where he could tell his wife what had happened
and she could call for an ambulance.
Amazingly, Morris never felt any pain or discomfort other
than the sting of the bite itself as he hurried back to his house and called 911
himself. He told his wife what happened, then sat and watched ESPN’s
Sportscenter while he waited for paramedics to arrive.
The EMTs that arrived on the scene were shocked when they
saw the severity of Morris’s snake bite and how it had hardly affected him,
other than creating some redness in the area around the bite.
It seems that the 435-pound Morris’s huge girth had diluted
the copperhead’s poison, which would have been enough to kill an average-sized
man in a matter of minutes.
“I used to want to lose weight and get in shape, but not
any more,” said Morris, age 38. “Being a little overweight saved my life.”
After having a few tests run, he was released from the
Bloomington Hospital of Orange County and sent home with a clean bill of health.
Morris’s wife and children thank their lucky stars that
Burt is still around. “I don’t know what we would have done had Burt kicked the
bucket,” said wife Brenda. “I just love him so much, no matter how fat he
gets.”
Burt Morris vows to be more careful next time he is getting
firewood for his barbeque pit. Added Morris, “Next time I might not be so
lucky—if I walk into a whole slew of them, I might not make it next time.”
