It was like hitting 'an electric fence while wet.' Man bit by snake in Kansas lake

Grady Kornelson was swimming Friday near Haven Cove in Cheney Lake when he felt a bite — and then he saw a snake heading toward his family.

It was that bite that would turn his arm red, swollen and bruised.

Kornelson said on Facebook that he had his back to the shoreline and was watching his daughter and fiancee as they were headed back to shore because the sun was setting.

"Next thing i know i was bit and heading towards the hospital and landed in ICU for the weekend," Kornelson, of Hutchinson, posted.

He told the Hutchinson News that he was bitten on his forearm, and days later his arm is still swollen about four inches up from his elbow. The snake bite left three, bleeding dots on his arm.

“The pain felt like I was hit by an electric fence while wet,” he told the Hutch News. “On a scale of one to 10, it was a nine.”

Kornelson posted that the snake looked like a water moccasin, but it might have been a baby copperhead. He said poison control ruled out a water moccasin bite based on his blood-work numbers.

Still, experts disagree on what kind of snake bit Kornelson.

“Not having been there, the massasauga rattler fits the description,” Daren Riedle, wildlife diversity coordinator, told the Hutch News. He thought Cheney lake is "pretty far west for a copperhead."

K-State Research and Extension reports that the poisonous water moccasin has rarely been captured in extreme southeast Kansas. Copperheads, however, are likely the most-abundant poisonous snake in eastern Kansas, according to the report.

The report says copperheads are about 2 to 3 feet long. Because of its small size, the low toxicity of its venom means bites are "normally not fatal" to adults. Those who are elderly, in poor health or very young are in most danger from those snake bites.

The massasauga is known as the "prairie rattler" of eastern Kansas, K-State reports, and is often found in fields.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that about 7,000 to 8,000 people per year in the U.S. receive venomous snake bites, and about five of those people die.

Last week, a copperhead snake bit a 6-year-old boy in Georgia. He knew exactly what to do — keep his hand low, slow his heart rate — because snakes are his favorite reptile.

This story was originally published June 5, 2018 at 11:20 AM with the headline "It was like hitting 'an electric fence while wet.' Man bit by snake in Kansas lake."