An American pastor, whose father died seven minutes after being bitten by a snake, has had to receive treatment after being bitten himself.
Once bitten, the pastor, Cody Coots, had asked his congregation to take him to the mountaintop where God would judge whether he is to pull through or succumbto the same fate as his father.
Instead of following the words of the pastor, one follower took him to hospital where doctors told the pastor he was lucky to be alive.
The snake came close to severing the temporal artery, which would almost certainly kill him.
Cody's father, Jamie Coots, died when he was only 42 - Jamie was bitten by a rattlesnake at the same church in Middlesboro, Kentucky, Cody was, back in 2014.
The church, Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus' Name church, is inspired by the biblical verse Mark 16:18: 'They will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them'.
The pastor was pictured with his shirt covered in blood, before he was carried out and rushed to hospital by his defiant and caring follower.
Pastor Cody's church is one of many snake-handling churches that started making appearances, over a hundred years ago, in the Appalachian Mountains area.
Following the death of his father Cody was thrust into the dangerous position of a snake-handling pastor at age on 23 - he's the fourth generation to take up the profession.
Cody's father was just one of many people to succumb to the fatal bite of a rattlesnake while handling them at the church.
David Brock was 60 when died after being bitten at a Pentecostal Church in Kentucky in 2015, and 44-year-old pastor Mack Randall Wolford was bitten by a timber rattlesnake during an outdoor service and died in West Virginia in 2012.
Mack Randall Wolford was the second in his lineage to die from a snake bite - his father, who was also a snake handling pastor, also died from a snake bite almost 30 years earlier.
Even with the high-risk factor of snake-handling, congregations like Pastor Cody's continue to endangertheir lives, at their Sunday services, for their faith.
During the services followers of the faith lay hands on the sick, pray, sing, and listen to sermons.
The Pastor then often picks up snakes from a box and carries one or two of them up in the air while preaching to his congregation.
This IS not funny! DO not laugh
