At their home Tuesday, Ken and Barbara Quinn chatted with neighbors who stopped by to ask about Ken’s recovery from the two rattlesnake bites he received on his right hand last week.

Information about dealing with rattlesnakes

Ken Quinn knows about rattlesnakes.

"I've lived in California all my life and I've been in areas where there have been snakes. ...  I've been especially careful to avoid them as much as I can. I generally look very carefully where I walk ... and I don't put my hands underneath shrubs or areas that I can't see that it's clear," said Quinn, a lean and fit man of 80.

Despite these precautions, last Wednesday Quinn was bitten twice on his right hand by a rattlesnake at his De La Cruz Drive home. The snake struck without warning from under a bush.

"I've never encountered one quite as aggressive as that particular one. ... I was merely reaching down to pick up one of those acorns in the pathway," Quinn said. "He just sort of came out from underneath the fern. ... There was absolutely no rattle whatsoever."

After he was bitten, Quinn saw the snake coiled under the bush, and estimates it was about three feet long.

The snake was not captured.

Quinn said he felt it was important to remain calm and get help immediately. He went into the house to find his wife, Barbara, and she drove him to Fire Station 59, thinking that antivenin for the snake bites would be available there. But firefighters don't stock antivenin or administer it, and Quinn was taken by ambulance to Mercy Hospital in Folsom for treatment. Later in the day he was transferred to Kaiser South, where medical personnel continued to monitor swelling and administer doses of antivenin.

"When you first get hit by this ... it starts radiating throughout your body. It's almost a sensation like when your leg goes to sleep," Quinn said. "You start to feel it all over. It's a strange feeling."

Then comes the swelling. His arm ballooned, and he experienced lesser swelling from head to toe.

With treatment, he recovered enough to go home on Friday, two days after the snake bit him

By Monday, Quinn was doing some putting and chipping on the golf course, even though he hasn't played much in the last few years. "When you get something like this, you think, hey, if you want to do it at all ... I better start getting out there."

"Right now, my arm is still a little bit swollen," Quinn said Tuesday as he worked in his yard. "I'm trying to clean up some of the leaves around the shrubs so there's not such an opportunity for hiding places. I feel the sooner you get up and move around and you get your body parts working as best you can, that's more helpful than laying down in bed and worrying about the next thing that might happen. 

"Instead of reaching down to pick up the acorns, I use a rake."