CHARLOTTE, N.C. – A woman was bitten by a poisonous snake in a south Charlotte neighborhood while she was walking out her door to take out her recycling.
“I walked out the door, just a normal evening the sun was starting to go down, stepped outside and you turn around (and) you see it’s a snake,” said Lisa Romanoff. “It’s the most shocking thing you could ever imagine.”
For Romanoff, the surprise went her rushing to the emergency room.
“I kept screaming for my husband, ‘I got bit by a snake!’” Romanoff said. “It’ll take months for the venom to be out.”
After the Friday night attack, Romanoff posted a warning for others on Facebook. She spent the next several hours hooked up to an IV in a hospital bed. That’s when she received an even bigger surprise.
“At about midnight, they finally said, ‘we’re not going to give you the anti-venom because the pain could be worse,’” she said.
According to Allen Eckman with A-1 Wildlife Control, snake sightings may continue to rise, even with a drop in temperature.
“This year, with the change in weather, we’ve had a lot more calls,” Eckman said.
Romanoff will have her feet up for the next few days and will begin a long road to recovery.
“Venom disperses throughout your body,” she said. “And by the way, I did not have a phobia before. I didn’t like them. They scare me, but I wasn’t one of those people that were freaked out. I think I will be now.”