Rattlesnake Preacher Dies Of Snake Bite: Pastor Jamie Coots Bitten & Killed By Snakes

Rattlesnake Preacher Dies Of Snake Bite: Pastor
Jamie Coots Bitten & Killed By Snakes
A popular Snake salvation pastor , Jamie Coots
who appeared on the National Geographic TV
reality show has died.
He passed away over the weekend after he was
bitten by rattlesnakes during church service in
Kentucky, reports the Associated Press.
He was handling rattlesnakes at his Full Gospel
Tabernacle church in Middlesboroe when he was
bitten on Saturday night.
Another preacher in the church, Cody Winn told
WBIR TV.
After the snake bite, Jamie Coots reportedly
dropped the snakes and moments later he picked
them back up and continue preaching. Within
minutes, Winn said Coots went to the bathroom.
“He had one of the rattlers in his hand, he came
over and he was standing beside me. It was plain
view, it just turned its head and bit him in the
back of the hand … within a second,” Cody Winn
said.
When an ambulance arrived at the church at 8:30
p.m. Saturday, they were told Coots had gone
home, the Middlesboro Police Department said in
a statement.
Contacted at his house, Coots refused medical
treatment.
Emergency workers left about 9:10 p.m. that
night. When they returned about an hour later,
Coots was dead from a venomous snake bite,
police added.
The snake-handling pastor’s son, Cody Coots,
told the television station his dad had been bit
eight times before, but never had such a severe
reaction.
The son said he had thought the bite would be
just like all the others.
“We’re going to go home, he’s going to lay on the
couch, he’s going to hurt, he’s going to pray for
a while and he’s going to get better. That’s what
happened every other time, except this time was
just so quick and it was crazy, it was really
crazy,” Cody Coots said.
In January 2013, Coots was caught transporting
three rattlesnakes and two copperheads through
Knoxville, Tenn. Wildlife officials confiscated the
snakes, and Coots pleaded guilty to illegal wildlife
possession. He was given one year of
unsupervised probation.
National Geographic said in a statement that it
was struck by Coots’ “devout religious
convictions despite the health and legal peril he
often faced.”
“Those risks were always worth it to him and his
congregants as a means to demonstrate their
unwavering faith,” the statement said.
“We were honoured to be allowed such unique
access to pastor Jamie and his congregation
during the course of our show, and give context
to his method of worship.”
Coots said in February 2013 that he needed the
snakes for religious reasons, citing a Bible
passage in the book of Mark that reads, in part:
“And these signs shall follow them that believe;
In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall
speak with new tongues; They shall take up
serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it
shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the
sick, and they shall recover.”
The pastor said that year that he took that
passage at face value.
“We literally believe they want us to take up
snakes,” Coots told The Associated Press at the
time. “We’ve been serpent handling for the past
20 or 21 years.”
In 1995, 28-year-old Melinda Brown, of
Parrottsville, Tenn., died after being bitten at
Coot’s church by a 4-foot-long timber
rattlesnake.
Her relatives disputed accounts that the mother
of five had been holding the snake that bit her
and disagreed with witnesses who said she
refused medical treatment as she suffered the
effects of the venom for two days at Coots’
home.
The Bell County attorney at the time wanted to
prosecute under a 1942 state law that made it
illegal to handle or display snakes during religious
services. But the judge refused to sign the
criminal complaint.
“If the court thought that a trial would act to
deter future snake handling in church, my decision
would be different,” Bell District Judge James
Bowling Jr. wrote to the county attorney. “But
you and I both know that this practice is not
going to stop until either rattlesnakes or snake
handlers become extinct.”