Overview
- During a Kentucky church service in February 2014, a rattlesnake bit Jamie Coots on the hand; he went home, declined treatment, and was pronounced dead that evening.
- Fellow preacher Cody Winn said Coots dropped the snake, picked it up again, and was bitten within seconds.
- Coots had survived multiple prior bites and lost part of a finger, maintaining that anointed believers would not be harmed.
- He faced legal scrutiny over venomous snakes, receiving probation in 2013 for transporting them and being arrested in 2008 for keeping 74 at his residence.
- National Geographic, which featured him in Snake Salvation, issued a tribute, and a University of Tennessee professor said some followers may view him as a martyr and persist in the practice.