When Joseph Ricardella saw a snake in the road, he stopped his car and tried to help it to avoid getting run over.

The attempted good deed landed him in a Connecticut hospital in a medically induced coma.

After the timber rattlesnake, which is rare in the Northeast, bit his hand when he threw a shirt over it and tried to pick it up.

According to his former girlfriend and mother of his daughter.

Why?

He said, uh, he called her on Sunday to say he's been bitten and was driving to the hospital.

She said his voice sounded odd, like Donald Duck.

She said it happened as he was driving from a park in upstate New York to his home in Connecticut.

It is not clear where the encounter happened because he hasn't been able to speak in detail yet to family and friends.

He is a father of four who runs a landscaping business and has no medical insurance, went into cardiac arrest, and was resuscitated, later placed in a medically induced coma after being flown from a

hospital in Hartford into New York. Doctors brought him out of the coma on Tuesday, but he remained

indivated and sedated because of swelling from the venom. Yeah, because he tried to help a rattlesnake.

And this was a little guy. We know that they don't really know how to control the venom very well. Or they do. It was surprising that like anybody would try to pick up a rattlesnake. He said by phone. But it doesn't surprise me in the same sense because he kind of always did that. They were talking to his brother. If he saw an animal on the side of the road or he would just stop to get him out of the road. Or if he was in a Facebook group, and he'd see they have animals and he'd help. He would take in those animals. His brother said they grew up on a farm where they used to play in the woods, catch snakes, lizards, and other critters. But never a rattlesnake. Right. He said he was surprised his brother tried to help one and was bitten. He said he does quite know better. It's a rattlesnake. And look, even if you drive over most snakes, they will be okay. Seriously, just their last destiny. Even if the Colorado, these things, they didn't get hit all the time. They got run over all the time. And they were to slither off. I mean, there was no... And look, when I was growing up, man, if there was a rattlesnake, I remember one Saturday morning, put it in perspective. My brother and I watching Saturday morning cartoons. And from outside, we hear from the backyard. We look out there. My dad's got one of those metal rakes.

And we don't know what he's doing.

We find out in about five minutes.

He discovered a rattlesnake. My mom's little garden out there. And he beat that thing to death. And he brought it in what was left of it in a newspaper that he opened up and put the body down there. And he's showing me and my brother. goes, that's what does it look like if you see one.

Okay, just leave it alone.

Yeah.

Like, that's the other alternative.

That's what we learn.

But I, me and my brother. It goes, that's what does it look like if you see one. Okay, or just leave it alone. Yeah. Like, that's the other alternative. That's what we learned. But, I mean, I told you, when I was a kid, we were driving back from Pennsylvania. I want to say Altoona. But we're like up in the mountains. And same thing. We saw a horrific car accident, but it was raining so hard. Like, my dad was just like, I got to keep going. Because he was afraid if he stopped, we would hide your plate. And the same thing was going. Or somebody would come up and rear end you. Right. Because you're on the interstate. Yeah. So that's why I always wondered. So we kept going, but I don't know. It's a tough life. Because that's what I'm saying.

Sometimes I watch these videos like, I'm pulling around that thing.

...