LUTHER, OK — A local restaurant owner, just taking out the trash, is recovering after being bitten by a copperhead snake. She says she was throwing out garbage when the snake came out of nowhere and bit her.
Buffy Price was taking out the trash at her barbecue restaurant in Luther when suddenly something struck her. She looked down saw blood on her foot and a snake scurry away through the grass.
“It struck me and actually bit me twice,” Buffy Price says, “It started welling up; turning colors.”
She could feel the burn of the deadly venom pulsing from her foot to her leg but she managed to drive a few miles home to get her husband Donnie Samara.
“I was absolutely freaked out; I mean I couldn’t do anything,” Donnie Samara explains. He hopped in the SUV then made a mad dash for the hospital.
“I got her there within 20 minutes,” Samara says.
Photographs show just how quickly the poison took over her body.
“[I have] never seen anything swollen like that before in my life and it was already black when we got to the hospital, her foot, her entire foot,” Samara says. “She had black all the way up to her thigh, black marks and bruising. It’s scary.”
At the hospital she was given anti-venom. The life-saving potion costs about $1500 a dose, and she needed eight doses.
“The doctor was pretty sure it was a copperhead because he’s seen the bites before.
“It can be really; really dangerous. People lose toes fingers and fingers if not limbs because of it,” the doctor says.
Refusing to stay at home Buffy Price went back to work at the Boundary on Route 66 restaurant in a wheelchair.
“It takes about a month to fully recover because there are damaged cells that have to be replaced slowly but surely throughout my leg and foot,” Price explains.
This week she’s able to stand and perform light duties on her feet.
Now that Price is on the road to recovery, Donnie Samara has an eye out for the slithering serpent that took a bite out of his wife.
“I will send you a copy of the wanted poster, I’m going to post it all over the restaurant and they’ll be a reward.
Experts say people are often bitten when they accidentally step on snakes. So, it’s always a good idea to look down when walking near wooded areas or tall grass.
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This story was originally posted on KFOR and was written by Ted Malave.
