A Yavapai County camper is recovering at home after deputies coordinated a helicopter rescue when a rattlesnake bite sent him into convulsions in a remote Arizona area.
The man, whose name was not released, had already been suffering for roughly half an hour when two Yavapai County Sheriff’s Office deputies reached him last week. Bodycam footage released by the office shows him vomiting, sweating heavily, and struggling with intense muscle spasms by the time help arrived.
“My leg, it feels like it’s spasming,” he told the deputies upon their arrival.
An officer immediately began coaching him to control his breathing. “We don’t want your heart rate to get up too fast,” the deputy said, instructing him to breathe in slowly and deeply.
The rural terrain proved too difficult for an ambulance to navigate, forcing law enforcement to call in a helicopter for evacuation. As the venom’s effects intensified, the camper’s condition deteriorated rapidly on camera. He was later seen lying on the ground, barely conscious, telling an officer in a dazed, almost sleeping manner that he needed to call his wife.
“Hey, keep your eyes open,” the deputy told him.
According to the sheriff’s office, the man’s symptoms escalated to vomiting, convulsions, and increasingly severe muscle spasms as the minutes ticked by. The deputies worked to keep him calm and still in an effort to slow the venom’s spread through his bloodstream while waiting for air transport.
Once medical personnel reached the scene, the deputies pivoted to clearing and securing a helicopter landing zone in the rough backcountry. After the helicopter touched down, one deputy promised to keep the man’s wife updated as the footage showed what appeared to be a severely swollen arm.
The camper was airlifted to a Phoenix-area hospital, where he underwent emergency treatment and remained for up to four days before his release. He has since continued recovering at his residence, according to law enforcement.
“The ability to adapt and understand how to preserve life in so many different, high-stress situations is exactly what makes our deputies heroes,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement following the rescue.
Rattlesnake encounters have been climbing across the western United States, with more than 250 rattlesnakes already recorded in Southern California this season as hikers and residents cross paths with the reptiles on trails and even in residential backyards. Emily Taylor, a biology professor at Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo, said that an early spring heat wave across the region likely triggered the increase by waking rattlesnakes from hibernation weeks ahead of their normal schedule.
Bites remain extremely rare, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture advises anyone bitten to stay calm, keep the bite area positioned lower than the heart, and summon emergency help immediately rather than attempting to treat the wound independently.
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