(Sixteen-year-old Vera Oliphant) said she was in a fog, her eyesight and her consciousness fading. How she got to the house, she cannot fully recall. “I was feeling numb and paralyzed. I had black vision and I saw bubbles. It felt like needles were stabbing me… it burned so hard and it felt like a bomb just exploded in me. It’s really hard to describe,” she said.

“I struggled to get my key out, and I was too weak to ring the bell. I desperately tapped at the window and cried, ‘Help me,’ and that’s when my uncle took me to a hospital 15 miles away,” said Oliphant.

On the way to Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, Oliphant was somehow able to put a post on her Facebook page: “i got bit by a rattle snake & now i,m about to go to l.C.U .. it hurts like a ___ & my leg is paralyzed ._.”

Soon after, she went into anaphylactic shock twice and lost consciousness four times. She arrived at the hospital in the nick of time.