Decapitated Snake Bites Prosser Man

Prosser, Benton County

Turns out, even beheaded rattlesnakes can be dangerous. That's what 53-year-old Danny Anderson learned Monday night, when a 5-foot rattler slithered onto his Central Washington property, about 50 miles southeast of Yakima.

Anderson and his 27-year-old son, Benjamin, pinned the snake with an irrigation pipe and cut off its head with a shovel. A few more strikes to the head left it sitting under a pickup truck.

"When I reached down to pick up the head, it raised around and did a backflip almost, and bit my finger," Anderson said. "I had to shake my hand real hard to get it to let loose."

His wife insisted they go to the hospital, and when they arrived 10 minutes later, Anderson's tongue was swollen and the venom was spreading. He then was taken by ambulance 30 miles to a Richland hospital to get the full series of six shots he needed.

Anderson was in the hospital until Wednesday afternoon.

Mike Livingston, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, said he had never heard of anyone bitten by a decapitated snake before.

"That's really surprising, but that's an important thing to tell people," he said. "It may have been just a reflex on the part of the snake."