Sanger sanctuary founder says cottonmouth bite sent him to Fort Worth for surgery

The founder of a Sanger animal sanctuary says a cottonmouth bit his right hand near the creek on his family's land, an injury that carried him from an emergency room in Denton to a Fort Worth hospital for more antivenom and surgery before dawn. The Texas Department of State Health Services advises snakebite victims to seek medical attention promptly and to call 911 or the Texas Poison Center Network to locate a facility that stocks the appropriate antivenom.

Jeremy Sons wrote in a first-person account that the bite came at about 7 p.m., after he bent down and reached for weeds by the water. A post from Clear Creek Adventure Ranch says the snake left five puncture wounds in his right hand, and a later update from Sons says doctors believed he was struck three times and hit by five fangs.

His wife, Katelyn, called 911 to confirm the hospital they were driving toward carried antivenom, according to his post. A ranch post says the couple rushed to an ER in Denton. Sons wrote that he was moved to a Fort Worth hospital, which he did not name, at around 3 a.m., took a third round of antivenom there, and went into surgery near 4 a.m. Writing later from intensive care, he said he had received 28 doses of two different antivenoms and expected to go back to the operating room for a skin graft.

Sons identifies himself as the founder of Clear Creek Adventure Ranch Rescue & Education, a nonprofit sanctuary on family land in Sanger. The IRS Exempt Organizations Business Master File lists the ranch as a 501(c)(3) animal-related organization with a ruling date of September 2025. Its website says it provides lifelong sanctuary to rescued and special-needs animals, and a ranch post says the place has long taken in abandoned animals and animals born with defects.

DSHS counts roughly 7,000 venomous snakebites nationwide in a year, says about half are dry bites that inject no venom, and reports that Texas averages one or two snakebite deaths annually. Texas Parks and Wildlife identifies the western cottonmouth, also called the water moccasin, as the cottonmouth found in Texas.

A Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth study said the hospital treats about 20 snakebite patients a year, and that most of them came from rural areas outside suburban Fort Worth and were transferred to the trauma center. Texas Health identifies that hospital as a Level I trauma center.

Cooke County sits in the same emergency-care geography. North Texas Medical Center in Gainesville says its emergency room serves Cooke County and northern Denton County. Cooke County EMS says it covers about 900 square miles for a mostly rural population near 40,000.