A prominent snake-handling preacher who gained a wider audience on reality TV died after a snake bit him during a church service Saturday evening and he refused medical treatment, police said.Jamie Coots was bitten on his right hand by a snake, according to a news release, the Lexington (Ky.) Herald-Leader reported. An ambulance crew and firefighters tried to persuading Coots to go to the hospital, but he refused treatment, police said.
Emergency workers left Coots’ house at 9:10 p.m. where he’d gone after the bite, but less than an hour later Coots died, police said. He was pronounced dead at his home.
Coots was a third-generation snake handler and pastored a small Pentecostal church, Full Gospel Tabernacle, in Middlesboro, Ky., just north of the Tennessee border. Coots gained a bigger audience last year through the National Geographic Channel’s “Snake Salvation” reality show. From the ...