{"id":392670,"date":"2026-03-19T05:16:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T05:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/392670\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T05:16:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T05:16:14","slug":"guy-goes-to-fix-trail-camera-and-almost-ends-up-in-er-with-a-rare-bite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/392670\/","title":{"rendered":"Guy Goes To Fix Trail Camera \u2014 And Almost Ends Up In ER With A Rare Bite"},"content":{"rendered":"

Frank Fleming and his wife own 120 acres of land in Costa Rica and have had trail cameras there for well over a decade. They love seeing what\u2019s going on with the local wildlife, so when Fleming noticed one of his cameras had been obscured, he was immediately annoyed.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I walked up to the camera, I was a bit irritated that a branch had fallen in front of it, because it\u2019s a great spot for wildlife, and branches can obscure the animals,\u201d Fleming told The Dodo. \u201cThe small branch was wedged under the camera but above the metal bracket, making [it] not so easy to move.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"trailFrank Fleming<\/p>\n

Normally Fleming is very aware of his surroundings, but he was so focused on getting the camera working that he wasn\u2019t really paying attention to anything else. He was hard at work trying to get the branch free when he noticed someone dangerous had beaten him to the camera: a white-tailed hognose viper.<\/p>\n

Fleming is very familiar with snakes and talks about them on his YouTube channel<\/a>. He\u2019d encountered this type of pit viper before, and knew the little guy was pretty rare \u2014 and venomous.<\/p>\n

\"snakeFrank Fleming<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing a \u2018snake person,\u2019 I\u2019m usually always on the lookout between camera stops, but the \u2018camera trapper\u2019 in me was too busy obsessing over how much footage I\u2019d missed,\u201d Fleming wrote on Facebook<\/a>. \u201cIf I had reached for that latch without looking, I\u2019d be typing this from the ER.\u201d<\/p>\n

Luckily, Fleming was able to jump back in time and assess the situation. He doesn\u2019t like to move any wildlife he encounters if he can help it, but he needed to remove the stick and get the memory card out of the camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cI unscrewed the camera from the base to easily get the stick free, and when I did that, the snake made a couple of long strikes at me,\u201d Fleming said. \u201cThen it wiggled off the support log, and I was able to use another stick to lift it over \u2026 into a pile of sticks and leaves.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fleming was able to complete his mission without any harm coming to him or his snake friend. He later posted photos of the encounter online \u2014 and many people also had trouble spotting the snake.<\/p>\n

\"snakeFrank Fleming<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot [of] folks (even snake folks) didn\u2019t see the snake at first either because it blends in,\u201d Fleming said. \u201cAs I said before, I\u2019m [a] snake person, so a lot of friends enjoyed the picture of this unusual species.\u201d<\/p>\n

The entire experience was a great reminder for Fleming to always keep his eyes open when he\u2019s out checking the trail cameras. You never know who might be hanging around.<\/p>\n

\"Woman<\/a>Woman Rescues Snake \u2014 Then Watches In Awe As She Gives Birth In Her HandShe couldn\u2019t believe it \u2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Frank Fleming and his wife own 120 acres of land in Costa Rica and have had trail cameras…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":392671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[273],"tags":[1863,34996,1703,18,19,17,133,1702,1700,461],"class_list":{"0":"post-392670","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-animal-encounters","9":"tag-caitlin-jill-anders","10":"tag-daily-dodo","11":"tag-eire","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-standard","16":"tag-the-dodo","17":"tag-wildlife"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116254145713016176","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392670","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=392670"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/392670\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/392671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=392670"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=392670"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=392670"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}