Instead, I was bitten by a venomous snake, and now I’m here to share with you everything I learned (and you should know) ...

Diehm said snake bites are rare around the gorge, but snakes are not. He said copperheads and rattlesnakes are especially common along the bike trail. "There's a lot of snakes in the Glen," he said.

Finch says it is the third known death in Missouri by the bite of a copperhead. The others were in the 1960s and in 2012. Finch says Levins was at a cabin, saw the snake and pointed it out to his son.

Copperhead snake bites are rarely fatal to humans, but they can be painful and expensive to treat. Copperhead snakes are brownish-gray in color with an hourglass-shaped pattern on their backs ...

Copperhead snake bites are rarely fatal to humans, but they can be painful and expensive to treat. Juvenile copperhead. Note the yellow-tipped tail. Jodie Owen Courtesy of the NC Wildlife ...