While taking part in an age-old religious tradition, a 60-year-old Kentucky church member died after refusing treatment for a rattlesnake bite he received while handling the creature.
A church member says John David Brock refused medical treatment and went to his brother’s house where he died about four hours later. The Bell County Coroner was called to the residence and pronounced Brock dead.
From WKYT:
Stoney Fork is a small community in Bell County where people say faith is very important and for some that means handling snakes during a church service.
“Certainly people take it literally … the verse where it says people take up deadly serpents or poisons,” Jack Green of Stoney Fork said.
Green says he doesn’t believe in handling snakes but stopped short of criticizing those who do.
“It is people doing what they believe. It isn’t anything to sneer at,” he said.
News reports say that Brock is the second person to die from a snake bite during a Bell County church service in a little over a year.
Watch WKYT’s report on the story in the video below:
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