An Oregon snake collector stuck a rattlesnake in his mouth while drunk, to impress his ex-girlfriend.

Wilkinson, 23, had downed a six-pack and his ex-girlfriend asked him for a beer. He handed her one, not realizing the snake was also in his hand.

“She said, ‘Get that thing out of my face,’” Wilkinson said. “I told her it was a nice snake. ‘Nothing can happen. Watch.’”

So he stuck the snake in his mouth.

“It got a hold of my tongue,” he said.

He was having breathing problems when his ex-girlfriend drove him to the hospital. “She was the only one sober,” Wilkinson said.

En route, they spotted a police car and asked for help.

His next memory, he said, was waking up at the hospital.

Doctors could not get a breathing tube down his throat.

Dr. Richard Mullins cut a hole in Wilkinson’s neck to insert the breathing tube. Physicians started giving antivenin, moved him to intensive care and kept him sedated until the swelling went down.

I have a cousin who got bitten in the heel by a pygmie rattler when he was a teen-ager. Even though he had boots on the snake got to him. His fangs were still in the boot when it was removed.

He recently broke his knee at work and has told me this is the worst pain he has felt since he got bitten by the snake.

Maybe this guy has learned his lesson and should be glad his ex-girlfriend was there to take him to the hospital.