Animal Lover Stops To Assist Snake In the Middle of the Road - Is Repaid By a Venemous Bite

TUCKERTON, N.J. -- A man is in stable condition after he was bitten by a timber rattlesnake in New Jersey's Pinelands.

Photo: Not the actual snake. A substitute snake.

The 24-year-old Ocean County resident, whose name has not been released, stopped on Route 679 in Tuckerton and tried to use a stick to move a rattle snake off the road so it would not be run over by a vehicle.

Environmental Protection Department spokesman Larry Ragonese told The Star-Ledger of Newark the snake squirmed free, wrapped itself around the man's arm and sank its fangs into his hand in gratitude.

The man drove three miles to seek help and was flown by helicopter to a hospital.

Timber rattlesnakes are the only venomous snakes in that part of the Pinelands.