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LINCOLNTON — A Dallas man bitten by a timber rattlesnake was flown to Carolinas Medical Center over the weekend.

Michael J. Jacobs, 32, of Dallas, was at an East Sycamore Street home in Lincolnton Friday night when he said he got an unwelcome surprise.

Jacobs opened a plastic container and was bitten by a rattler that was inside.

“I didn’t know that it was in there. If I had known it was in there, I wouldn’t have opened it,” he said from his hospital bed Monday afternoon.

Jacobs said he expects to be in the hospital a few more days but felt lucky it wasn’t worse.

“It was an unfortunate accident. I’m lucky to be alive,” he said. “Luckily I watch enough ‘Animal Planet.’”

Jacobs said he opened the container to put a lizard inside. When the snake struck, one fang sunk into Jacobs’ finger. His body quickly felt all warm inside and he knew he needed to get to the hospital. Jacobs had a friend drive him to Carolinas Medical Center-Lincoln. He was later flown by helicopter to Charlotte.

Jacobs said keeping a cool head was important and noted that he had experience with exotic animals from working at a zoo.

Jacobs said he doesn’t know who put the snake in the tub.

The venomous snake, indigenous to North Carolina, isn’t meant for captivity, according to Officer C.R. Arnold with the N.C. Wildlife Commission.

Arnold was contacted by Lincolnton Police and visited the Sycamore Street home Monday.

“I’ve got one of the snakes in the front seat of my truck right now and I’m not real comfortable with it,” he said.

Arnold drove the snake to The Schiele Museum of Natural History Monday afternoon where the snake will be kept indefinitely.

A snake and a lizard are just two of the animals Lincolnton Police Detective Jason Munday saw when he went to the home.

Munday said he saw a caiman, part of the crocodile family.

Not typically found in this region, caimans come with regulations, Arnold said.

Local police did not press any charges, but the Wildlife Commission investigation is ongoing, said Arnold.

An important lesson can come from Jacobs’ venomous encounter, according to Arnold.

“Poisonous snakes don’t make good pets, especially if they’re indigenous to North Carolina,” he said. “If they find a rattlesnake they cannot keep it. It’s not a pet. It’s a wild animal. They cannot be bought, sold or traded.”

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A 10-year-old boy drowned Saturday afternoon at Fort Fisher State Recreation Area, and rescue workers at other area beaches said rip currents were the cause of several other near-drownings.

Just after 4 p.m., after a two-hour search off the beach of Fort Fisher, the U.S. Coast Guard located the boy in the surf. The boy was not conscious. He was transported to New Hanover Regional Medical Center, where a doctor pronounced him dead, said Deputy Charles Smith of the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office.

Lifeguards at Fort Fisher reported about 2 p.m. that three swimmers were in distress. The lifeguards rescued two adults who were swimming with the boy, but the boy was missing in the water, Smith said.

The search included officials with the Coast Guard, the sheriff’s office and a number of local police and rescue units. The Wilmington Police Department’s SABLE helicopter flew overhead and there were at least three search boats in the waters.

Coast Guard members located the boy’s body from a helicopter and sent a diver into the water to retrieve him. After bringing the boy to shore, rescue workers tried to revive him while family members sat in a circle on the beach, just in front of the rescue vehicle, in prayer.

Hundreds of bystanders at the state park huddled while they watched the rescue. Officials made sure people didn’t enter the water while the search was under way.

Smith said the boy’s parents were taken to the hospital. Officials were withholding the boy’s name pending notification of other family members.

Near-drownings and ocean rescues were reported at other New Hanover County beaches.

Cpl. Simon Sanders, of Carolina Beach Ocean Rescue, said one woman was transported to the hospital at about 5 p.m. after she was rescued from a rip current near the Oystershell Lane beach access. He said the woman had a pulse, but he did not have information about her condition.

He said lifeguards on duty were flying red flags to signal rip current danger and advise swimmers to use caution.

Kure Beach Ocean Rescue director Tom Cannon said lifeguards had rescued a handful of swimmers caught in rip currents Saturday, but he said none of the rescued individuals had serious injuries.

At the beginning of the tourist season, budget cuts had forced Fort Fisher to eliminate its lifeguards.

But in one rough weekend, Kure Beach lifeguards repeatedly responded to emergencies at Fort Fisher, Some eventually remained stationed at Fort Fisher.

But that left Kure Beach understaffed, so town officials and concerned residents lobbied state legislators to put lifeguards back on Fort Fisher, and on June 6, the lifeguards returned.

Earlier this season, an Ohio woman died after being caught in a rip current at Kure Beach.

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A Pittsburgh man whose body washed up along North Carolina’s Outer Banks after he went for a late-night swim died from shark bites, a medical examiner determined Friday.

It was the first reported shark attack in the region in more than eight years.

The body of Richard A. Snead, 60, was discovered Thursday morning near the 1300 block of N. Virginia Dare Trail in Kill Devil Hills by a tourist who was taking a walk, police said.

Shark bites killed Snead, the regional medical examiner’s office in Greenville, N.C., said Friday.

Snead suffered extensive injuries and there is no question that a shark attack caused his death, an autopsy assistant at the Brody School of Medicine at East Carolina University said.

“Living tissues look different when they receive an injury, versus tissues that are already dead,” she said.

Officials had not determined what type of shark might have attacked Snead, who was on vacation with his family when he went for a swim sometime after 9 p.m. off Corolla, about 30 miles north of Kill Devil Hills.

His family reported him missing about 12:45 a.m. Sunday. Red flags had been posted Saturday warning people to stay out of the water because of dangerous surf.

It is likely Snead was attacked near the area where he went swimming, said Lt. Jason Banks of the Currituck County Sheriff’s Office, and the current carried his body south.

Swimmers were warned Friday to be alert, “and to be aware that this incident occurred while the person was swimming at night,” a sheriff’s statement said. Snead had gone into the water at mile post 4-1/2; the mile posts are measured beginning at the Currituck County-Dare County line.

“I haven’t heard of any (shark) sightings, but I haven’t checked with any other jurisdictions,” Currituck County Sheriff Susan Johnson said. The drowning of a 12-year-old boy late last month did not appear to be shark-related, she added.

Johnson said she couldn’t recall any recent shark bites.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported  that a woman who answered the phone Friday at the Snead residence and identified herself only as Snead’s wife said he worked as an engineer and that he is survived by two grown children and one grandchild.

“He was a good man,” she said. “He was a good father.”

Last year, 41 shark attacks were recorded in the United States. One was fatal, said Maylon White, the director of exhibits and animal husbandry at the Virginia Aquarium in Virginia Beach.

“Shark attacks are really a fairly rare event when you consider how many people… go swimming,” he said. “There’s very little chance of something like this, as tragic as it is, happening to an individual.”

For safety, swimmers should not swim alone and should avoid swimming at twilight or at night, he said. That’s when sharks look for food.

“They don’t look to humans for food, but if we happen to get in the way, then we suffer the consequences.”

The last reported shark attacks in Virginia or the Outer Banks were in September 2001, when two people were killed and a third was hurt.

On Sept. 1, 2001, David Peltier, 10, was surfing with his family at Sandbridge in Virginia Beach when a shark bite severed an artery and he died. It was the first fatality recorded by a shark attack in Virginia and the first that year in the United States.

Experts said David could have been bitten by a bull shark because of the location and time of year that the attack occurred.

Two days after David’s death, Sergei Zaloukaev, 28, was swimming with his girlfriend off Avon, N.C., when they were attacked by a shark. Zaloukaev was killed, but Natalia Slobodskaya survived.

Experts said the couple could have been bitten by a tiger shark or bull shark.

The attacks set off a wave of shark hysteria. But in 2002, a study released by University of Florida researchers showed that attacks in 2001 actually decreased from the year before.

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Matthew Glomb had been looking forward to spending time with his son this week on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

But the father-son trip ended tragically Monday evening when Glomb was struck by lightning while jogging along the beach near his retirement home. Rescue officials in Southern Shores, N.C., said he was killed instantly.

Glomb’s Lake Ridge neighbor and good friend of nearly 30 years, Joe Malinowski, said Glomb spent a lot of time at the beach, and was excited for the family getaway.

The retired Coast Guard officer and attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice, along with his wife Lucy, son Alex and daughter Emily, had been at the beach house for about a week.

Lucy Glomb and their daughter had just returned home Monday night to drop off one of Emily’s friends and pick up another before heading back down. Alex, along with some of his college pals, stayed at the beach.

It was going to be the last family trip this summer before Alex returned to James Madison University this fall for his junior year of college and Emily headed back to class at Woodbridge High School, neighbors said.

When Lucy Glomb heard the news about her husband’s death, she called many of her close knit neighbors, including Malinowski.

“She said ‘I wouldn’t want you to hear about this from anyone else,’ and she called all of us last night,” he said.

Glomb was remembered Tuesday as not only a consummate career and family man, but also a man of the church. He was an auxiliary pastor at Old Bridge United Methodist Church in Lake Ridge.

Pastor Burton Robinson said he was one of the top members in his church.

“He led a mission trip to North Carolina for at least six or seven years, he worked with youth … did a whole lot of different things and did a whole lot for the church,” said Burton.

Malinowski said his latest youth mission trip, in North Carolina somewhere off of Interstate 95, was to install a handicapped ramp at a home of a disabled person.

Mary Jane McQuade, who lives next to the Glombs, remembered the holiday block parties the family helped organize three times a year. She said his passing is made even sadder because Thursday would have marked the couple’s 26th wedding anniversary.

She also received a call Monday night from Lucy Glomb.

“The first words out of her mouth were ‘isn’t it a shame this happened to Mister Safety?’” said McQuade.

She said Matthew Glomb always saw to it that everyone had a good time while ensuring they stayed as safe as possible.

McQuade held a copy of the “Cruel Sea” in her hands, a book Glomb gave to her son. Inside the front cover was an inscription that read, “Stay close to your parents … while not salty, they’re worth their salt.”

Malinowski said he’s also received an inspirational note from Glomb.

“The Vietnam War kind of got in the way of me graduating from college in 1969, but 30 years later I got my degree in 1996 and he sent me a note that said ‘your work matters to God.’ That was just the kind of person he was,” said Malinowski.

Last summer, another lightning strike claimed the life of a 23-year-old Woodbridge woman jogging along the oceanfront in Virginia Beach.

The woman was vacationing at the resort town after graduating from the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg.

Officials said there had also been severe weather in the area when the woman was killed.

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HATTERAS VILLAGE, N.C. — A Springboro man has died while saving his children from a rip current off the North Carolina coast.

Robert Cook, 43, was pronounced dead after he was found in the water about 75 feet from shore just after 5 p.m. Saturday.

Cook was with his children and a friend finishing a vacation at the north end of Hatteras Village, Cyndy Holda, a spokeswoman for Cape Hatteras National Seashore, told the Virginian News-Pilot.

Cook’s children and his friend’s child were having trouble swimming, so Cook and his friend were bringing them in to the beach, she said.

When they went back for the last child, Cook became tired and couldn’t make it back to the shore, Holda said.

Rescue crews found Cook a short time later while conducting a grid search of the water, but could not resuscitate him.

Officials said red flags were posted at the time due to rough water conditions.

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KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. – Officials believe a lightning strike caused a man’s death in the Outer Banks.

The Southern Shores Fire Chief told WAVY.com they received a call around 5:30 p.m. for a body on the beach. Chief Harvey says the body was found near Mockingbird Lane.

He says he is “reasonably certain” a lightning strike is to blame.

The male victim did not have ID on him, but Chief Harvey says investigators found his vehicle near by. They believe he is in his late 40s and from Northern Virginia.

Neighbors described a wave of thunderstorms with lots of lightning and heavy rain.

The incident has been turned over to the Southern Shores Police Department.

In Suffolk, three lanes of eastbound Rt. 58, in the area of the scales, were closed due to a downed tree. Two lanes have since reopened.

The National Weather Service reported a tree down at the corner of Suffolk Meadows Boulevard and Baron Boulevard in Suffolk.

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Holden Beach | The first shark attack in the Cape Fear region since July 2007 occurred Wednesday afternoon at Holden Beach, police said.

A shark bit Julia Anne Mittleberg, 26, of Morton, Ill., about 3 p.m. while she was in 3 to 4 feet of water in the Atlantic Ocean near the 400 block of Ocean Boulevard West, Holden Beach police said.

Mittleberg told emergency responders that she felt something bite her left foot when she was in the water. She was taken to the Brunswick County Community Hospital in Supply.

Police said a spokesperson from the hospital confirmed that Mittleberg is in good condition.

Shark attacks are not common and the most recent attack in the area in 2007 occurred at North Topsail Beach when a 14-year-old boy sustained minor injuries from a shark bite.

“We regret that this unfortunate incident occurred in Holden Beach, but consider it an isolated, chance occurrence.” a press release from the Holden Beach Police Department said.

For ways to minimize chances of shark bites in coastal waters, visit MyReporter.com and enter “shark” in the search field, or go directly to http://www.myreporter.com/?p=2254.

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Carolina Beach | A man who lifeguards pulled from a rip current at Carolina Beach late last month died at an area hospital this week, according to his family.

David Weaver, 41, of Leland was brought to shore June 27. Though he wasn’t breathing, he was revived on the way to New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington, officials have said.

But family members say Weaver remained on life support after the rescue attempt.

On Wednesday, the family took him off life-support to see if he would survive, said Debbie Ward, Weaver’s sister-in-law. He died soon after.

The death is the third drowning to occur this season at New Hanover County beaches, and the second at Carolina Beach.

Earlier this summer, authorities said high winds had cut deep troughs in the sand just off shore at the area’s east-facing beaches.

Those areas between the shore and sandbars are conducive to the formation of rip currents, officials have said.

Weaver’s emergency and the prior drowning at Carolina Beach this year occurred near the Hamlet beach access, officials said. In May, a 19-year-old man from Fayetteville disappeared in the water there. His body was found days later. Then in June, a woman from Ohio drowned at Kure Beach after she was pulled from a rip current.

The emergency

Weaver’s emergency occurred around 7 p.m. on a Saturday, while the beach was crowded with swimmers, according to Weaver’s wife Sandy.

Authorities said lifeguards had recently finished their shift but were still in the area. Sandy said the family did not see any flags indicating the surf conditions, and said the flags, which could serve as a warning, should remain even after lifeguards leave.

Sandy says Weaver went into the water to help his 13-year-old daughter Amanda, and Kesha Davis, a 27-year-old family friend, who was swimming with her. Both were caught in a rip current. But Weaver never made it to them, Sandy said. Instead the current took him in a different direction.

Davis said trouble began when she and Amanda were in waist-deep water. “We were not far out,” she said. “One minute we could touch the bottom of the ocean, the next minute we couldn’t.”

Davis and Amanda eventually made it back toward the beach, where Sandy helped them ashore. Lifeguards brought Weaver to shore, started CPR and handed him off to EMS workers who took him to the hospital.

Ward, Weaver’s sister-in-law, remembered Weaver as fun and friendly. After a burn-injury, which family members say he sustained while painting streets, Weaver passed his time as a stay-at-home dad.

Sandy said he lived for their three children – Michael, Megan and Amanda – who are between the ages of 11 and 13.

His funeral is scheduled for 2 p.m. Monday at Andrews Mortuary, with burial to follow at Greenlawn Memorial Park Cemetery.

Authorities have said anyone caught in a rip current shouldn’t fight it. Instead, swim parallel to the shore until you can get out of the current. Swimmers should swim near lifeguards, officials say, and signal to them if they get in trouble.

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Woman dies after being caught in Kure Beach rip current

KURE BEACH | An Ohio woman vacationing at Kure Beach died Monday after being pulled from a rip current on Saturday, officials said.

New Hanover County Medical Examiner Dr. Dennis Nicks said he learned of the death Monday. He did not have the woman’s name available when reached at his home Monday night.

Kure Beach police and ocean rescue have said the woman, her husband and a 16-year-old boy were pulled from a large rip current around 3:30 p.m. on Saturday.

Once on shore, the boy was fine, but the couple was rushed to New Hanover Regional Medical Center. By Sunday, authorities said the man had been released from New Hanover but the woman remained in critical condition in the hospital’s intensive care unit.

The couple who are in their 40s, were vacationing from Ohio, officials have said.

On Monday, Kure Beach Fire Chief Harold Heglar said the drowning was the first on a guarded stretch of Kure Beach in probably 20 years.

“It was a huge rip current, as big as I’ve ever seen,” Heglar said.

It took five lifeguards to get the woman, her husband and the boy out of the water, Heglar said. Lifeguards worked together to pull the swimmers in, Kure Beach Ocean Rescue Director Tom Cannon has said.

After bringing the couple on shore, lifeguards began CPR, which was continued by EMS workers, Cannon said.

Lifeguards at Kure and Carolina beaches flew red flags to warn swimmers of dangerous surf conditions.

Cannon asked people with questions about swimming to check with lifeguards. If you are caught in a rip current, the key is not to panic, he said. Rather than fight against the current, swimmers should swim parallel to the shore. If a current carries someone far out, lifeguards will swim to them, Cannon said, so swimmers should save their energy and not fight the rip current.

Related Links:

• Drowning victim’s spouse praises Kure Beach staff
• Body of missing swimmer found Thursday morning in Carolina Beach
• Missing swimmer is presumed drowned at Carolina Beach
• Beach hazard – Lifeguards rescue dozens during weekend
• Missing man last seen in waters off Carolina Beach
• Follow these safety rules, tips for a fun summer in the sun
• Ocean Safety | Video
• Carolina Beach Rescue | Video
• Coast Guard improves boat location system
• Swimmer taken to hospital after rescue by lifeguards at Carolina Beach
• Beach life comes with rules, regulations

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Woman injured by mother bear

BLACK MOUNTAIN — More people moving into the mountains are learning to live with an increasing number of bears as neighbors – and for good reason.

Encounters between humans and bears have exploded in a little more than a decade, though few have been like the altercation near Black Mountain where a bear protecting her cubs swatted a woman protecting her dog.

“You can’t have a low-hanging bird feeder or a trash can out on the street. We have trash containers that we have to chain up,” said Lyons Williams, whose Great Aspen Lane neighbor was hit by the bear.

“We’ve had bears break into houses to steal food,” Williams said.

Neighbor Gaynell Lumsden was in her garage near the Asheville watershed when the bear and cubs entered her yard about 8:30 p.m. Sunday.

Lumsden’s Maltese – weighing about 15 pounds – went after the bears, and she was struck trying to get the dog out of the way. Lumsden was treated at Mission Hospital and released late Sunday.

She could not be reached Monday. Her dog, also slapped by the bear, did not suffer major injuries.

“I would not call it a bear attack, but a bear incident,” said Mike Carraway, a wildlife biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

“It was just a mother bear defending her cubs,” Carraway said. “If it had been the bear taking aggressive action, the injuries would have been much more serious.”

Authorities in Buncombe, Henderson, Madison and areas west recorded 13 bear complaints or sightings in 1993. Sightings peaked at 397 in 2005, while 302 bear incidents were reported last year.

Mother bears are not necessarily more dangerous than others, but they can be more aggressive when their cubs are small at this time of year.

“Later in the summer, when the cubs can run faster and climb, the mothers won’t be so protective,” Carraway said.

Bears also react instinctively to dogs, even small ones barking at them. “Dogs and bears don’t mix well,” he said.

Bear sightings so far in 2009 have been fairly normal, Carraway said.