Sixteen-year-old Vera Oliphant was walking in a rural area outside of
San Diego searching for a cellphone signal to call her mom. But she
ended up needing to call out for help after being attacked by a group of
rattlesnakes.
The San Diego teen was visiting
her uncle on October 27, in Jamul. She had walked up a hill trying to
get her
She heard them before she saw them. "I ran backwards and stepped into a pit of snakes, " she told Fox News San Diego.
She added, "My body instantly started going numb." She was bitten on
the right foot at least six times, first by the mother and then the five
babies.
She hobbled back to her uncle's house who rushed her to the hospital.
It took 24 vials of antivenom to
neutralize the toxin from the bites. The cheery teen with dyed red hair
and face piercing spent four days in intensive care, and two weeks at
home on crutches to nurse her swollen foot.
But recovery will be slow. "The
doctors told me that I need two to three months to completely recover
from the bites. But I will feel a weird sensation when stepping on my
right leg for years," she told ABC News.
The high school junior has
recovered and was expecting to return to her high school, Chaparral High
School in El Cajon. A little sore, and a little wiser.
She told Fox, "If you're in the
desert for one, wear boots. And two don't bring your cellphone or go
searching for reception, because you probably won't find it anyways. And
you might step into a pit of rattlesnakes. "
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