City attorney says copperhead bite 'was excruciating'

Joffrion offers advice on how to keep snakes away

Back at work on Monday for the first time since being bitten by a copperhead in his garage a week ago, Huntsville City Attorney Peter Joffrion has sound counsel about the subject.

First, don't blindly reach your hand into the dark.

Second, if you do get bitten by a snake, stay calm.

Third, if you store pet food in your garage, put it in air-tight containers.

"I never thought I'd be in a position to give expert advice about snakes," he said. "It goes to show you never know what's going to happen."

What happened to Joffrion - who is newly married to the Rev. Kerry Holder with Interfaith Mission Service - is he'd gone into the detached garage of the couple's home near Monte Sano State Park to do a little laundry and let their golden retriever out.

It was 8:40 p.m. last Monday, and the garage was dark. Joffrion, 49, reached to turn on a light for the laundry closet, unaware that a mature copperhead was resting on a ledge near the light switch.

"It bit me twice on the finger," he said. "Needless to say, I was pretty stunned. I stepped back and watched it hit the ground, noticing its coloring.

"Then I went back into the house and said to my wife, 'I've been bitten by a poisonous snake. Please call 911.' "

Within four minutes, the fire department arrived, and HEMSI was there shortly after to take him to Huntsville Hospital.

On the phone, he'd been told how important it was to stay calm and immobile and to minimize his pulse rate, so he did that.

Even so, by the time he got to the hospital, his hand and arm were so swollen, Joffrion said his emergency room doctor thought he'd been bitten by a rattlesnake.

"But there'd been no rattle, no noise," he said. "The snake was bright orange with rust, in an alternating hourglass pattern. I knew it wasn't a rattlesnake."

Regardless, Joffrion said the pain was indescribable.

"I've been through some things in my life, like a blown disc, but nothing has ever come close to hurting like this," he said. "It was a 10 on a scale of 10.

"For the first 14 hours, it was excruciating."

Three antivenin doses neutralized the poison the snake injected into the city attorney.

Joffrion said his arm and hand are still sore, but the pain is manageable.

While he was in the hospital, Joffrion said some neighbors put mothballs into the family's garage - "Someone said that's pretty good at keeping them away" - but he doesn't know where the snake that bit him went. He said vector control searched the area the next day but didn't find it.

"Probably the most helpful thing you can do is to keep your pet food stored in air-tight containers," he said. "If you leave it open, the food will attract rodents, and the rodents attract the snakes.

"Metal containers work better than plastic because rats and raccoons can't chew through them."

As painful as the ordeal was, Joffrion said he is thankful that it wasn't his wife or her two children who reached out to turn on the light switch that night.

"Especially the 6-year-old," he said. "She's so tiny. The outcome could've been very different."