risks

Some of the leaders in these churches have been bitten numerous times, as indicated by their distorted extremities. For example, the founder of modern snake handling in the Appalachian Mountains died from snakebite in 1955. In 1998, snake-handling evangelist John Wayne "Punkin" Brown died after being bitten by a timber rattler at the Rock House Holiness Church in rural northeastern Alabama. Members of his family contend that his death was likely due to a heart attack. His wife had died three years earlier after a snake bit her while in Kentucky. Another follower died in 2006 at a church in Kentucky.

[legality:

The practice is legal in the state of West Virginia.

Snake handling was made a felony punishable by death under Georgia law in 1941, following the death of a seven-year-old girl from a rattlesnake bite in a snake handling incident. However, the severity of the punishment was such that juries would never convict, and the law was repealed in 1968.]