September 25, 2012
By Eric Kopp, FLorida.NewsZap.com
OKEECHOBEE—A Davie man had to be airlifted to a coastal hospital after he was bitten on the foot by a pygmy rattlesnake while hunting Sunday in the Starvation Slough Management Area.
According to a hunting partner Nicholas Ryan Grubaugh, 23, was still in Lawnwood Regional Medical Center as of Monday afternoon. Mr. Grubaugh and Nick Dourque, 26, were deer hunting Sept. 23 in the management area.
Mr. Dourque, who lives next door to Mr. Grubaugh on S.W. Seventh Court in Davie, said the two men were supposed to meet back at Mr. Grubaugh’s black F-150 Ford pickup truck. But when he returned to the truck his friend wasn’t there.
A report by Deputy Rusty Hartsfield, of the Okeechobee County Sheriff’s Office (OCSO) indicated that his office was contacted about the snakebite victim by a dispatcher with the Highlands County Sheriff’s Office around 3:27 p.m.
The report goes on to indicate that Mr. Grubaugh was about 2 miles inside the hunting area when he was bitten around 2 p.m.
Deputy Hartsfield’s report stated that when he arrived he found that Mr. Grubaugh had applied a tourniquet to his leg and that his foot was swollen and turning black.