CLARKSTON, Wash. --The red light on the phone next to Mica Craig's hospital bed blinked with a new call, but this time it wasn't a concerned relative or another reporter asking how a rattlesnake bit him at the Clarkston Walmart.
"I'm about to do a TV interview in five minutes," the 47-year-old Clarkston man said to the caller shortly before 2 p.m. He asked the caller to call back about 3 p.m.
After Craig hung up, he said it was a Walmart claims adjuster.
Craig said he was looking at gardening supplies in the Clarkston Walmart parking lot Friday when he grabbed what he thought was a stick lying on the ground, but was really a 1-foot to 1 1/2-foot long, solid brown rattlesnake that struck him in the hand. He eventually flung the reptile to the ground and stomped it to death.