ifredregill@altoonamirror.com
Rattlesnakes aren’t typically part of the medical diagnostic process, but for a local fire chief, a snake bite led to the discovery of cancer cells in his blood.
“I was laying on the ground in 2017 under a boat I had recently bought,” said Jason Baker, the Logan Township United Fire Department fire chief. “And I felt a burning in my calf.”
Baker didn’t feel the snake’s fangs sink into his leg, because when he sits or lays down for long periods, parts of his body go numb as a result of Lyme Disease, which he contracted from tick bites in the late 1990s and early 2000s.