By Free Republic | Created at 2025-01-20 21:30:55 | Updated at 2025-01-21 01:26:32
4 hours ago
Rattlesnake Bites Social Media Star, Sends Him to UF Health Shands ICU: ‘Welp, I’m Cooked'
WXJB ^
Posted on 01/20/2025 1:26:13 PM PST by nickcarraway
A social media influencer and wildlife enthusiast was hospitalized after a rattlesnake bit him in Dixie County.
David Humphlett, @adventorin on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube, travels the United States to find and showcase wildlife, particularly snakes and other reptiles.
The Gainesville resident was searching for snakes on Dec. 18 on Shired Island in Dixie County when a diamondback rattlesnake found him first.
“Welp, I’m cooked,” Humphlett said on video moments after the snake bit his leg. “Alright, that right there is a fantastic Eastern Diamondback Rattlesnake that I just got bit in the leg by when I was peeling bark.”
He was peeling bark around a tree in an effort to find another type of snake when he startled the viper.
“And then I just felt, out of nowhere, this intense pain, right in my leg. Honestly, it felt like an alligator,” Humphlett said.
He rushed to a Cross City fire station where he was then taken to UF Health Shands by helicopter.
“My reaction was just like dang it, this is really bad,” Humphlett recounted. “I might lose my leg. It was petty scary because my whole body went numb head to toe.”
A familiar face was waiting for him at the hospital. His wife, a UF Health nurse, was at work.
“Internally, I’m panicking but externally, I’m reassuring him, ‘You’re going to be fine,’” said Emma Rynear, Humphlett’s wife. “My team here at work helped me run down to the emergency room to be right there as the helicopter landed.”
Doctors gave him 88 vials of antivenom as his leg swelled from the snake’s venom. After 13 days, he remains in the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit.
The couple says the community’s support has been incredible.
“That’s just the God we serve,” said Rynear. “He turns things that seem crappy and makes them really beautiful.”
Despite the life-threatening run-in with the rattlesnake, Humphlett doesn’t blame the animal and views the incident as an educational moment.
“The snake is just doing what it does. It perceived me as a threat and it was just trying to protect itself. I’m not mad at the snake and I don’t want anyone else to be mad at the snake either,” said Humphlett.
He is excited to get back into the wild once released from the hospital. He and his wife set up a gofundme to help pay for Humphlett’s medical bills.
TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Computers/Internet; Health/Medicine; Local News; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: influencer; rattlesnake; socialmedia
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Social media stars, is there anything they can't do?
Can anyone tell me if there is a difference between a social media star and an influencer, and, if so, what is the difference?
1 posted on 01/20/2025 1:26:13 PM PST by nickcarraway
The snakes don’t want to be searched for. Leave them alone.
2 posted on 01/20/2025 1:29:43 PM PST by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
To: nickcarraway
3 posted on 01/20/2025 1:30:30 PM PST by rlmorel ("A people that elect corrupt politicians are not victims...but accomplices." George Orwell)
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