A sad story coming out of the state of Georgia where a man lost his life while hunting in the woods. Apparently a 68 year old man was in a tree stand and on his attempt to come down from the stand, he was bitten by a snake. The snake bite proved to be fatal as the man’s grandson tried to get him to safety by the use of an ATV or 4 wheeler. The 68 year old man continued to pass out on his journey out of the woods and would fall off the 4 wheeler. By the time emergency personnel had reach the man, he was unresponsive to their treatments and passed away.

The man’s name was Dick Rupert and he is from Winder, Georgia. I’m sure it’s been a rough weekend for his family, from this horrible hunting accident that occurred on Saturday morning in Oglethorpe County located in Georgia. Normally we think of a gun shot wound as a hunting accident, but there is many forms of hunting accidents that take place each year in Georgia and the rest of the country too. The hunting accident that ended Mr. Rupert’s life on Saturday was apparently caused from the venom of a snake; when it bit Dick Rupert on the calf. While most of us know that some snakes are poisonous, it is rare for them to actually kill people. Especially when someone goes for immediate medical treatment like in this case with Rupert’s hunting accident.

The people that are associated with this hunting accident are thinking the snake was a timber rattler (a type of rattlesnake); which are found commonly in Georgia. The picture above is one of a timber rattler and perhaps was a snake of this size that bit Mr. Rupert on the calf. If you look closely at the tail on the left side of the picture above, you can see how blunt the tail comes to an end. A rule of thumb with poisonous snakes, is that their tails will be very blunt at the end. This means that instead of the tail gradually decreasing in size near the tail, it comes to a drastic decrease at the end. A snake that isn’t poisonous would gradually decrease in size near the tail and would have a more symmetric looking body shape. This is only a rule of thumb and this isn’t 100% accurate all of the time. It is wise to just avoid all snakes, but especially the ones you find that have this quick and blunt tail look to them, like the timber rattler has in the picture above.

Rattle snakes are poisonous snakes and their venom can kill people. Most people know these snakes due to the rattler that is at the end of their tails and they will shake their tails causing a “rattle noise” that warns people and other animals that they are in the area. I’m not sure if the rattler was being heard Saturday morning when Dick Rupert was hunting in the woods of Georgia, but it is a sound you can hear very well. I would imagine the snake was just at the bottom of the tree stand and Mr. Rupert surprised the snake when he was climbing down and the snake felt threatened or got stepped on. This rattle snake probably didn’t have time to use their rattler, that would have surely warned Rupert to stay away and could have avoided this tragic story.

Let’s just hope Dick Rupert didn’t die in vain on Saturday and someone out there will learn from this accident. If we can use his story to warn other hunters the dangers that are out there and especially the dangers with snakes; then we can make the best out of a bad situation. The tree stands are great in the woods and give us the surprise factor over deer, but we do surprise the other animals in the woods too; when we use these tree stands. It sounds like this rattle snake made it’s way to the base of this tree stand and wasn’t expecting anything coming down from the tree. A snake senses are great about picking up vibrations from the ground; when a person or other animal is on the ground walking toward them. The snake in this story didn’t have a chance to really use it’s natural senses, since a hunter was coming down from a tree stand. If the timber rattler would have seen the hunter climbing down; then chances are the snake would have crawled away or used it’s rattler to warn the hunter of it’s presence.