Rachel Myrick experienced possibly one of the last things you'd expect upon entering a LongHorn Steakhouse: She was bit by a copperhead snake. In fact, the venomous 8-inch snake was still attached to her foot (she was wearing sandals) after she first felt a sharp pain; she had to shake it loose. "My fingers wrapped around the bottom of my foot; that's when I felt what turned out to be a snake wiggling in my fingers," the mother of two tells WTOP. "I freaked out," she adds, per the Free Lance-Star. The copperhead actually bit her twice on her toes and once on the side of her foot during the Sept. 12 incident at the Virginia restaurant. Her boyfriend and her 13-year-old son stomped on the snake to kill it, then called for an ambulance as Myrick's foot started to swell.
Eventually the swelling spread past her knee—some even reached her hip and thigh—so she was administered antivenin, which combats the snake's venom but can come with serious side effects, the following day. She was ultimately released from the hospital Sept. 17, but she's still using crutches to avoid putting weight on her injured foot and could take three months to fully recover. "It's painful just to ride in the car. There's very little that I can do. I can't work. I can't take my kids anywhere. Even phone calls are very difficult because I'm medicated," the real estate agent tells the Star. A LongHorn spokesperson calls the incident "highly unusual" and says the chain is "taking steps to prevent it from happening again." The rest of Myrick's party continued their meal as Myrick went to the hospital, and the manager comped it. (More snake stories.)
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