The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (http://bit.ly/1PXNzhk) that the man tried to pick up the snake Saturday in Sullivan. The small snake bit him, but the man was able to capture the snake and put it in a box.

The man sought treatment at Missouri Baptist Hospital in Sullivan. A nurse there didn’t want to open the box and called the Missouri Department of Conservation. An agent arrived and confirmed it was a copperhead, which is a venomous snake, though bites are rarely fatal.

The man was treated at the hospital and released. The snake was released back into the wild.

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Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com