An Oklahoma man went into a home improvement store looking for shrubs but left in an ambulance after being bitten by a rattlesnake, officials said on Wednesday.
The victim, described as a 35-year-old male, was shopping on Sunday in a section that sold large trees in the outdoor garden center at a Lowe’s store in the northeast Oklahoma town of Broken Arrow when he was bitten by an 18-inch rattlesnake, local fire and rescue officials said.
“The individual had thought that he had hit his hand on a thorn and he discovered that it was a snake,” said Lowe’s spokeswoman Chris Ahearn, who was relaying information that she received from the store’s manager.
Fellow shoppers killed the snake and the dead serpent was transported to the hospital in order to help doctors identify the venom to which the victim had been exposed.
Fire officials would not comment on the man’s condition. They said it appeared the snake was not of a species native to the area, and Ahearn said it may have possibly snuck into a tree shipment transported from a vendor in Tennessee.
Ahearn said she has not heard of a similar incident happening at the home improvement store before.
“We do have outdoor garden centers across the country and you have live plants. So, the possibility does exist,” she said.
“We scoured the garden center, and we have not found any other snakes,” Ahearn said. She added that Lowe’s is vigilant in inspecting the plants it purchases from its suppliers and that the snake bite incident was an isolated and rare case.