Doctors report rattlesnake bites on the rise

PHOENIX (KSAZ) - Instead of spending his day at school, 15-year-old high school sophomore Andrew Johnson is in a hospital room at Banner University Medical Center after he was bitten by a rattlesnake while out with friends over the weekend.

"And so we were climbing over the wall and as I came down I landed inside a bush, I felt something prick me in the ankle, and at the time we assumed it was just some thorn that the bush had," said Andrew Johnson.

But once he noticed the puncture marks above his left ankle, he thought maybe it wasn't really a thorn after all.

"Like we saw the two puncture wounds and it kind of looked like a snake, but we didn't hear or see anything so we just assumed that it wasn't," said Johnson.

But it turns out that blood tests showed that's exactly what it was, most likely a baby rattler that was in the bush Andrew stepped in.

He's had 14 vials of anti-venom at the hospital, and as bad as it looks he says his foot and leg are feeling much better. And he's glad his family got him to a doctor as soon as they realized something was wrong.

"With as bad as it got at the house, it's kind of crazy to think of how bad it could have gotten if we had waited longer on it," he said.

Johnson is continuing his recovery at a valley hospital.