Connecticut man bitten by rare rattlesnake he tried to help ends up in coma

HARTFORD, Conn. — When Joseph Ricciardella saw the snake in the road, he stopped his car and tried to help it 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, said Brittany Hilmeyer, his former girlfriend and the mother of his daughter.

Hilmeyer said Ricciardella called her on Sunday to say he had just been bitten and was driving to the hospital. His voice sounded odd, like Donald Duck, she said. She said it happened as Ricciardella was driving from a park in upstate New York to his home in Torrington, Connecticut, about 25 miles (40 kilometers) west of Hartford.

It isn't clear exactly where the encounter happened because he hasn't been able to speak in detail yet to family and friends, she said.

Ricciardella, 45, a father of four who runs a landscaping business and has no medical insurance, went into cardiac arrest, was resuscitated and was later placed into a medically induced coma after being flown from a hospital in Torrington one in Hartford, Hilmeyer said. Doctors brought him out of the coma on Tuesday, but he remained intubated and sedated because of swelling from the venom, she said.

“It was surprising that, like, anybody would try to pick up a rattlesnake,” Hilmeyer said by phone Thursday. “But it doesn't surprise me in the same sense because he kind of always did that. If he saw an animal on the side of the road or in the road, he would try to stop and get them out of the road. Or, if he was in his Facebook groups and he’d see they have animals that need help, he would take those animals."

“It's crazy. It’s something you would never think is going to happen,” she said.

The timber rattlesnake is one of two venomous snakes found in Connecticut — the other being the northern copperhead — and is extremely rare, according to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The snake is listed as endangered and is illegal to kill or collect. Rattlesnake bites are also extremely rare in the state, the agency said.

Ricciardella's brother, Robert Ricciardella, said they grew up in Waterbury, Connecticut, and spent weekends in upstate New York, where they used to play in the woods and catch snakes, lizards and other critters — but never a rattlesnake. He said he was surprised that his brother tried to help one and was bitten.

“He does quite know better,” he said.

Joseph Ricciardella's family has set up a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $5,000 so far to pay his medical bills.