NASHVILLE, TN (WSMV) - A West Tennessee mother is warning other parents to be careful where you place your children’s toys after her 20-month-old daughter got bitten by a venomous snake right outside their door.
“Emmy Joe, my baby, walked up to where her toys were and started screaming. My babysitter looked and said she saw a snake,” Foust said.
The little girl received a bite on her foot from a Copperhead snake.
Her parents rushed her to the emergency room.
“She was vomiting, just in a lot of pain. I was holding her, just consoling her, trying to get calm down,” Foust said.
Her husband later found the snake coiled up in his daughter’s toys
“It being right on our back porch. Right when we stepped outside. It could’ve happened to anybody. We no longer keep any of their toys on the back porch. Nothing is on there,” Foust said
They wants other parents to know to even though the weather is changing, snakes are still around.
“I think people think right now since it’s cold outside they’re not out and they’re not moving but they are. I mean, this was a cold day when this happened,” Foust said.
There are more than thirty species of snakes in Tennessee and most are beneficial to the environment. However, there are four venomous snakes to watch out for: Timber Rattlesnake, Pygmy Rattlesnake, Cottonmouth, and Copperhead.
According to the TWRA, it is illegal to kill or capture any snake.
If you do see a snake and want to learn what type it is, take a picture of it and email the TWRA at ask.twra@tn.gov.