Mack Wolford, a flamboyant Pentecostal pastor from West Virginia whose serpent-handling talents were profiled last November in The Washington Post Magazine , hoped the outdoor service he had planned for Sunday at an isolated state park would be a “homecoming like the old days,” full of folks speaking in tongues, handling snakes and having a “great time.” But it was not the sort of homecoming he foresaw. 
 
 Instead, Wolford, who turned 44 the previous day, was bitten by a rattlesnake he owned for years. He died late Sunday. 
 
 Mark Randall “Mack” Wolford was known all over Appalachia as a daring man of conviction. He believed that the Bible mandates that Christians handle serpents to test their faith in God — and that, if they are bitten, they trust in God alone to heal them. 
 
 He and other adherents cited Mark 16:17-18 as the reason for their practice: “And these signs will follow those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak with new tongues; they will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” 
 
 The son of a serpent handler who himself died in 1983 after being bitten, Wolford was trying to keep the practice alive, both in West Virginia, where it is legal, and in neighboring states where it is not. He was the kind of man reporters love: articulate, friendly and appreciative of media attention. Many serpent-handling Pentecostals retreat from journalists, but Wolford didn’t. He’d take them on snake-hunting expeditions. 
 
 Last Sunday started as a festive outdoor service on a sunny afternoon at Panther Wildlife Management Area, a state park roughly 80 miles west of Bluefield, W.Va. In the preceding days, Wolford had posted several teasers on his Facebook page asking people to attend. 
 
 “I am looking for a great time this Sunday,” he wrote May 22. “It is going to be a homecoming like the old days. Good ’ole raised in the holler or mountain ridge running, Holy Ghost-filled speaking-in-tongues sign believers.” 
 
 “Praise the Lord and pass the rattlesnakes, brother” he wrote on May 23. He also invited his extended family, who had largely given up the practice of serpent handling, to come to the park. 
 
 “At one time or another, we had handled [snakes], but we had backslid,” his sister, Robin Vanover, said Monday evening. “His birthday was Saturday, and all he wanted to do is get his brothers and sisters in church together.” 
 
 And so they were gathered at this evangelistic hootenanny of Christian praise and worship. About 30 minutes into the service, his sister said, Wolford passed a yellow timber rattlesnake to a church member and his mother. 
 
 “He laid it on the ground,” she said, “and he sat down next to the snake, and it bit him on the thigh.” 
 
 A state forester, who was not authorized to speak on the record, said park officials were unaware of Wolford’s activities. “Had we known he had poisonous animals, we would have never allowed it,” he said. 
 
 The festivities came to a halt shortly thereafter, and Wolford was taken back to a relative’s house in Bluefield to recover, as he always had when suffering from previous snake bites. By late afternoon, it was clear that this time was different, and desperate messages began flying about on Facebook, asking for prayer. 
 
 Wolford got progressively worse. Paramedics transported him to Bluefield Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead. It could not be determined when the paramedics were called. 
 
 Wolford was 15 when he saw his father die at age 39 of a rattlesnake bite in almost exactly the same circumstances. 
 
 “He lived 101 / 2 hours,” Wolford told The Washington Post last fall. “When he got bit, he said he wanted to die in the church. Three hours after he was bitten, his kidneys shut down. After a while, your heart stops. I hated to see him go, but he died for what he believed in.” 
 
 According to people who witnessed Mack Wolford’s death, history repeated itself. He was bitten roughly at 1:30 p.m.; he died about 11 that night. 
 
 One of the people present was Lauren Pond, 26, a freelance photographer from the District. She had been photographing serpent handlers in the area for more than a year, including for The Post, and stayed at Wolford’s home in November. 
 
 “He helped me to understand the faith instead of just documenting it,” she said Tuesday. “He was one of the most open pastors I’ve ever met. He was a friend and a teacher.” 
 
 The family allowed her to stay near Wolford’s side Sunday night, and she’s still recovering from having witnessed the pastor’s agonizing death. “I didn’t see the bite,” she said. “I saw the aftermath.” 
 
 In an interview with The Post for last year’s story, Jim Murphy, curator of the Reptile Discovery Center at the National Zoo, described what happens when a rattlesnake bites. 
 
 The pain is “excruciating,” he said. “The venom attacks the nervous system. It’s vicious and gruesome when it hits.” 
 
 But Wolford refused to fear the creatures. He slung poisonous snakes around his neck, danced with them, even laid down on or near them. He displayed spots on his right hand where copperheads had sunk their fangs. His home in Bluefield had a spare bedroom filled with at least eight venomous snakes: usually rattlers, water moccasins and copperheads that he fed rats and mice. He was passionate about wanting to help churches in nearby states — including North Carolina and Tennessee, where the practice is illegal — start up their own serpent-handling services. 
 
 “I promised the Lord I’d do everything in my power to keep the faith going,” he said in October. “I spend a lot of time going a lot of places that handle serpents to keep them motivated. I’m trying to get anybody I can get involved.” 
 
 His funeral will be held Saturday at his church, House of the Lord Jesus, in Matoaka, just north of Bluefield. 
 
 Julia Duin, a contributing writer for The Washington Post Magazine, wrote the original article about Mack Wolford. ||||| A pentecostal preacher in Kentucky who died after being bitten by a rattlesnake is being hailed as a martyr by his colleagues, who will continue breaking the law by handling poisonous reptiles during their church services, according to friends. 
 
 Jamie Coots “lived and died consistent with his faith” and his death will only inspire more people to obey an instruction from God in the Gospel of Mark that “they shall take up serpents,” said Professor Ralph Hood, of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. 
 
 “This won’t stop them: just the opposite,” said Hood, a friend of Coots and the most noted expert on the Appalachian serpent-handling tradition. “They will continue, and praise Jamie Coots as a martyr who died for his faith.” 
 
 Coots died on Saturday night after being bitten on the right hand during a service at his Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus Name church. The 42-year-old, who featured prominently in the National Geographic series Snake Salvation, refused medical attention on religious grounds. 
 
 His funeral is due to be held in his hometown of Middlesboro on Tuesday evening. 
 
 Coots’s son, Cody, said his family had expected him to survive because he had been bitten eight times before. “Everybody was getting in, shouting, taking up serpents, speaking in tongues, handling fire,” he told Kentucky’s WKYT-TV. “You could just feel the power of God.” 
 
 Coots had continued flouting a 74-year-old Kentucky law banning the use of poisonous snakes in religious services, even after a woman died from a bite during a ceremony he conducted in 1995. Coots was charged, but avoided prosecution after a judge declined to proceed with the case. He was also fined $6,400 in 2008 after being convicted of illegally trading in poisonous snakes. 
 
 Andrew Hamblin, a pastor in neighbouring Tennessee who was mentored by Coots and co-starred with him in the National Geographic series, is understood to have been devastated by the death. The Guardian has been told that he intends to continue his snake-handling services at Tabernacle Church of God. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest A man handling a rattlesnake during services at the Church of the Lord Jesus in Kingston, Georgia, in 1995. Photograph: John Bazemore/AP 
 
 Hamblin, 23, was last year charged with illegally possessing poisonous reptiles and had 53 rattlesnakes, copperheads and other breeds seized from his church. However, charges were dropped last month when a grand jury voted not to indict him. Hamblin claims the snakes’ appearances are shows of divine power. 
 
 
 
 In an interview before Coots’s death, Hamblin told the Guardian he disagreed with colleagues who declined medical help when bitten. “God has not moved on you, that authority is not there to protect you,” he said. “So go see a doctor. Do not sit there and suffer.” 
 
 Hamblin, a father of five young children, suffered his first bite while helping Coots prepare for a service in July 2010. “I was knocking on death’s door,” he said. “Me and death was just about ready to smoke a cigarette together, but God had mercy on me through a doctor’s knowledge.” 
 
 Since suffering the bite, he has been unable to make a fist with his right hand. He said he suffered another bite to his neck the next month but escaped without injury. However he insisted he had no fear when compelled by a command from God to pick up a snake during his services. 
 
 “If it’s my point in time to die, I could leave tonight in a car wreck and leave my children fatherless,” he said. “I could die of a heart attack. But if it’s my time to die there will not be a doctor in this world standing over me who’ll be able to keep me here”. 
 
 The tradition extends to West Virginia and dates back more than 100 years. Most pastors remain secretive about their work and do not permit outsiders to their services. Several declined to return requests for comment on Coots’s death. “If it’s about religion, I don’t want to talk about it,” said Pastor Jimmy Morrow of Newport, Tennessee. 
 
 They claim that only about 10 pastors have died from bites over the past century. However Mack Wolford of West Virginia, who led one of the best-attended snake-handling churches out of an estimated 125 in the region, was killed by a timber rattlesnake in May 2012. 
 
 “To the outsider it seems strange, but they have long accepted that they have a ritual that could kill,” said Hood. “For them it’s not a question of whether you are going to die, it’s a question of how you die. 
 
 “They would argue that the most important thing is to die being obedient to god. So they can mourn the loss of a loved one from a serpent bite, but simultaneously be confident that they are in heaven. It’s kind of a win-win situation, as far as they see it.”
– A West Virginia Pentecostal pastor who used poisonous snakes during religious services has died of a rattlesnake bite. Mack Wolford, who just turned 44, was killed by a snake he had owned for years, reports the Washington Post. He was bitten during an outdoor service at a state park he had hoped would be a "homecoming like the old days," filled with people speaking in tongues, handling snakes and having a "great time," he said on his Facebook page. “Praise the Lord and pass the rattlesnakes, brother,” he wrote last week. Wolford was bitten on the thigh when he sat next to the rattlesnake during the service. He was taken to a relative's home to recover, but was rushed later to a local hospital where he was declared dead. Wolford believed that the Bible requires Christians to handle poisonous snakes to test their faith in God, and remain steadfast in their belief that they will not be bitten or will be healed if they are attacked. Death by rattlesnake is "excruciating—the venom attacks the nervous system, and it's vicious and gruesome when it hits," a snake expert told the Post. Wolford was the son of a snake-handler preacher who died of a snake bite when Wolford was 15.