MIDDLESBRO, Kentucky, USA - Jamie Coots, a
snake-handling Kentucky pastor who appeared on the National Geographic
television reality show “Snake Salvation,” died on Saturday after being
bitten by a snake.Coots was handling a rattlesnake during a Saturday night service at his Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name Church in Middlesboro when he was bitten, another preacher, Cody Winn said.
“Jamie went across the floor.
He had one of the rattlers in his hand, he came over and he was
standing beside me. It was plain view, it just turned its head and bit
him in the back of the hand ... within a second,” Winn said.When an ambulance arrived at the church at 8.30pm, they were told Coots had gone home, the Middlesboro Police Department said in a news release. Contacted at his house, Coots refused medical treatment.
Emergency workers left about 9.10pm. When they returned about an hour
later, Coots was dead from a venomous snake bite, police said.
In January 2013, Coots was caught
transporting three rattlesnakes and two copperheads through Knoxville,
Tennessee. Wildlife officials confiscated the snakes, and Coots pleaded
guilty to illegal wildlife possession. He was given one year of
unsupervised probation.
Coots said
then he needed the snakes for religious reasons, citing a Bible passage
in the book of Mark that reads, in part: “And these signs shall follow
them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall
speak with new tongues.
Coots said
then he needed the snakes for religious reasons, citing a Bible passage
in the book of Mark that reads, in part: “And these signs shall follow
them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall
speak with new tongues.
They shall take up serpents; and if they drink
any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them.
They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
They shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”
Source: Agency
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