September 25, 2012
By Eric Kopp, FLorida.NewsZap.com
OKEECHOBEE—A Davie man had to be airlifted to a coastal hospital
after he was bitten on the foot by a pygmy rattlesnake while hunting
Sunday in the Starvation Slough Management Area.
According
to a hunting partner Nicholas Ryan Grubaugh, 23, was still in
Lawnwood Regional Medical Center as of Monday afternoon. Mr.
Grubaugh and Nick Dourque, 26, were deer hunting Sept. 23 in the
management area.
Mr. Dourque, who lives next door to Mr.
Grubaugh on S.W. Seventh Court in Davie, said the two men were
supposed to meet back at Mr. Grubaugh’s black F-150 Ford pickup
truck. But when he returned to the truck his friend wasn’t there.
A report by Deputy Rusty Hartsfield, of the Okeechobee County
Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) indicated that his office was contacted
about the snakebite victim by a dispatcher with the Highlands County
Sheriff’s Office around 3:27 p.m.
The report goes on to
indicate that Mr. Grubaugh was about 2 miles inside the hunting area
when he was bitten around 2 p.m.
Deputy Hartsfield’s report
stated that when he arrived he found that Mr. Grubaugh had applied a
tourniquet to his leg and that his foot was swollen and turning
black.
Fair Use Notice: This document may contain copyrighted material
whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owners. We believe
that this not-for-profit, educational use on the Web constitutes
a fair use of the copyrighted material (as provided for in section
107 of the US Copyright Law). If you wish to use this copyrighted
material for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must
obtain permission from the copyright owner.
