Brave Little Shelly Goes Toe-to-Toe with a Poisonous Copperhead in Order to Save the Life of the Slumbering Octogenarian Who Ransomed Her Off of Death Row at a Shelter

Shelly Has Become Claiborne County's Most Celebrated Feline

"It was predestined for him to have this cat just to save his life."
-- Teresa Seals

The night of September 24th was pretty much like every other one that eighty-one-year-old Jimmy Nelson had spent in his home in Speedwell, eighty-eight kilometers north of Knoxville, over the course of the past fifty or so years. The only thing out of the ordinary to have occurred was that he was awakened sometime during the night by the sound of his grayish-brown resident feline, Shelly, scurrying about outside his bedroom.

Assuming that she had been chasing a mouse, he quickly dismissed the sudden flurry of activity from his mind and returned to his slumber. It therefore was not until two days later on September 26th that he belatedly realized what a near-tragic mistake that he had made by failing to rouse himself and look into the disturbance.

"I got out and looked under the table and there laid a snake," he later told WBIR-TV of Knoxville on October 3rd. (See "Shelter Cat Saves Claiborne County Man from Venomous Snake Inside House.")

What he actually saw staring back at him was the lifeless body of a poisonous, two-foot long northern copperhead, Agkistrodon contortrix mokasen; literally, a twisted, hooked-tooth moccasin. It was not until the arrival of his daughter, Teresa Seals, that he fully grasped what had occurred two days earlier while he was wrapped up in the arms of the sandman.

"On the side of the snake's neck and head there were claw marks and one big slash, so we knew right then that the cat had definitely killed the snake and then brought it out a few days later to show it to her little dad," she theorized to WBIR-TV.

Although not particularly aggressive, copperheads will bite whenever they are either disturbed or frightened. Even then their bites are not especially dangerous in comparison to those of other vipers in that they usually can be successfully treated with pain medication, antibiotics, and medical supervision; the antivenom CroFab® is seldom required.

Nonetheless, if the snake had found its way into Nelson's bed just the fright occasioned by its sudden appearance would have perhaps been sufficient in order to have given him a heart attack. That is especially the case given not only his advanced years but also the fact that he is a stroke survivor.

It additionally is unusual, but not unheard of, for copperheads to find their way inside houses, especially during the warm summer months. A much more common occurrence is for residents of eastern Tennessee and western North Carolina to find black rat snakes, Pantherophis alleghaniensis, hibernating inside their abodes. It is almost superfluous to point out but to be awakened in the middle of the night with one of them slithering up one's naked legs is an experience that is not easily forgotten!

Even so there really is not any need to fear them in that even if worse came to worst their bites are entirely harmless. Some individuals even keep them as pets. That has not stopped countless ignoramuses, however, from killing these extremely beneficial snakes out of both fear and a Biblical hatred of them and their cousins.

With copperheads, the overwhelming majority of incidents occur, not indoors, but rather out of doors where their coppery coloring and reddish-brown crossbands make them extremely difficult to spot in fallen leaves. Consequently, individuals are sometimes bitten when they accidentally step on them.

"I've killed a million copperhead (sic) and rattlesnakes here on the place, but that was one time it was close," Nelson confessed to WBIR-TV.

Fortunately for him, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency in Nashville apparently does not take the enforcement of the state's wildlife protection laws seriously otherwise he would be in big trouble for making such an admission. That is because it is illegal to kill any of the state's thirty native species of snakes and that designation most definitely includes both copperheads and rattlesnakes. The only exceptions to that rule are made for those that venture inside homes and threaten livestock. (See Hunker.com of Santa Monica, an undated article entitled "Laws about Killing Snakes in Tennessee.")

Much more importantly, copperheads, rattlesnakes, and other Serpentes should have just as much of a right to live as all other animals. Much like cats, however, they have always gotten a bad press and that began with their demonization in the Book of Genesis. Besides, the venom obtained from copperheads is extremely valuable.

For example, it is used to treat, inter alia, hemophilia, epilepsy, neurasthenia, chorea, and posttraumatic stress disorder. More recently, a protein called contortrostatin has been found in the venom of southern copperheads, Agkistrodon contortrix contortrix, that not only stops the growth of cancerous cells but their spread as well.

Inexcusably, those breakthroughs are costing the lives of untold numbers of copperheads, mice, and other laboratory animals. As he more than abundantly has demonstrated throughout his long and anything but beneficial reign upon this planet as its supreme despot, the only use that man has for his fellows, the animals, and Mother Earth is what that he can steal from them. Every living creature and thing that he is either unable to subjugate or to exploit to the hilt he systematically exterminates en masse.

"An animal so lost in rapturous contemplation of what he thinks he is as to overlook what he indubitably ought to be," is how that Ambrose Bierce defined him in his 1906 seminal work, The Devil's Dictionary. "His chief occupation is extermination of other animals and his own species, which, however, multiplies with such insistent rapidity as to infest the whole inhabitable earth and Canada."

If Shelly's heroics in saving Nelson from a potentially dangerous encounter with a copperhead were all that there is to this story that would have been more than sufficient in order to have made for a good yarn but there is considerably more. As it so often has proven to be the case whenever a cat saves her owner's life Shelly, too, is a rescue animal who was languishing on death row at the Claiborne County Animal Shelter in New Tazewell, forty-three kilometers east of Speedwell, when Nelson intervened and saved her life by adopting her. Now, through her derring-do she has more than returned the favor.

Following the death of his wife, he wanted a companion and he accordingly picked out Shelly from her photograph on the shelter's web site. He never had even met her before his daughter brought her home to live with him.

The Dead Copperhead

Somehow, whether it was her looks or simply intuition, he instinctively knew that she was the cat for him and Seals realized it also as soon as she went and collected her. "I knew she was the one," she declared to WVLT-TV of Knoxville on October 2nd. (See "Woman Says Rescue Cat Saved Dad from Snake.")

The events of September 24th have served to only reinforce that strong belief in Seals' mind. "I think the Lord sent the cat to us to save my dad," she theorized to WBIR-TV. "It was predestined for him to have this cat just to save his life."

Given that it is pretty much impossible to rationalize such miraculous occurrences, her explanation is as good as any other one. Ailurophiles have known ever since cats were first domesticated some ten-thousand years ago that there is definitely something mystical, other-worldly, and inexplicable about them and that remains every bit as true to this very day. (See Cat Defender post of October 5, 2019 entitled "Is Chatting Up Cats in the Neighborhood a Productive Means of Locating One That Has Gone AWOL? Some Individuals in Japan Swear That It Is.")

The only thing that has changed over the course of the millenniums is that man has become more and more divorced from the animals and nature by the dizzying pace of modern-day life, his unquenchable thirst for wealth, power, and dominion, and his totally mindless pursuit of base pleasures. If anyone ever bothered to look into the matter, he or she would quickly discover that this world is chock-full of rescue and previously homeless cats who have gone on to save the lives of their new owners.

For example, during the early morning hours of August 16, 2007 twenty-six-year-old Kristen Eliasson was sound asleep in her upstairs apartment on Somerset Street in Ottawa when the entire building went up in flames. To make matters worse, the smoke detector in her flat was not working and she was so dead to the world that neither the alarm bell ringing in the hall nor the sirens emanating from the fire trucks and emergency personnel outside in the street were sufficient in order to awaken her.

She was saved, however, by a previously abandoned tuxedo named Bacon that she had taken in from the street four months earlier. Realizing what was occurring, he jumped in the sack with her and began loudly meowing in her face until she revived.

Wrapping herself in a blanket and then taking Bacon in her arms, she somehow was able to make it downstairs through the thick, black smoke and outside to safety. The entire building was eventually consumed by flames and she along with thirty other tenants were left homeless.

Although she had lost not only her home but all of her personal belongings as well, she was feeling anything but sorry for herself and singing the blues. "I'm just glad my cat's alive," she afterwards told The Ottawa Citizen. (See Cat Defender post of October 31, 2007 entitled "Bacon Shows His Appreciation and Love for His Rescuer by Awakening Her from a Burning Apartment.")

Later in June of 2009, Judy Danchura of Winnipeg opened up her heart and home to a footloose orange and white male named Sumo who shortly thereafter alerted her to the presence of a malignant tumor on one of her breasts. She now refers to him as her "furry, four-footed angel."

"I don't know what my chances of survival would have been without him. I know I'd certainly be far worse off," she said back then. "I sometimes feel overwhelmed because I feel humbled. I can't understand why this animal turned up for me." (See Cat Defender post of March 27, 2010 entitled "Taken In Off the Street by a Compassionate Woman, Sumo Returns the Favor by Alerting Her to a Cancerous Growth on Her Bosom.")

In May of 2011, fifty-two-year-old Wendy Humphreys of Wroughton in Wiltshire adopted an eight-week-old tuxedo kitten named Fidge who later also alerted her to the presence of a malignant tumor on one of her breasts. "She saved my life, definitely. No hesitation at all," she later was able to proclaim with confidence. "I was told that if I hadn't been diagnosed when I was I could have died because of the hormones in the menopause."

Adopting Fidge therefore turned out to have been the best thing that she ever did for herself. "I am so glad I got her," she summed up. (See Cat Defender post of April 20, 2012 entitled "Grateful for Being Provided with a Loving Home, Fidge in Turn Saves Her Mistress's Life by Alerting Her to a Malignant Growth on Her Breast.")

At 11 p.m. on February 8, 2012, thirty-six-year-old Amy Jung was in bed fast asleep in Sturgeon, Wisconsin, when she went into insulin shock. That in all likelihood would have been the end of the line for her if a nine-year-old, orange and white male named Pudding that she had adopted earlier in the day from the Door County Humane Society (DCHS) had not awakened both her and her son, Ethan.

"He just really took right over. Really second nature," she afterwards related. "Anything he could (do) to pull me out of it (the seizure). If something or someone hadn't pulled me out of that, I wouldn't be here."

No stranger to both suffering and misfortune himself, the elderly Pudding had been bandied about from home to home with several incarcerations at DCHS mixed in to boot before he was finally taken in by Jung. "In extraordinary instances, an animal actually saves a life," the DCHS wrote in the January-March 2012 edition of Door Animals Quarterly. "Most often, our pets open more subtle doors to a better, fuller, healthier life." (See Cat Defender post of April 21, 2012 entitled "Adopted from a Shelter Only Hours Previously, Pudding Saves His Rescuer's Life by Awakening Her from a Diabetic Seizure.")

Although they are not always acknowledged as being either rescue cats or homeless waifs, the actual number of them that end up saving the lives of their owners surely must be far greater given that most individuals obtain their companions from either shelters or the street. For instance, some cats are, like Pudding, able to anticipate blood sugar problems. (See Cat Defender post of May 18, 2009 entitled "Elijah Teaches Himself to Detect Low Blood Sugar Levels in His Guardians and Others.")

Others are able to anticipate emphysema attacks. (See Cat Defender post of April 18, 2009 entitled "Blackie Stays Up Nights Monitoring His Guardian's Breathing for Emphysema Attacks.")

Moreover, Sumo and Fidge certainly are not the only felines that are capable of detecting cancerous growths. (See Cat Defender post of April 11, 2009 entitled "Tiger Saves His Owner's Life by Alerting Him to a Cancerous Growth on His Left Lung.")

Shelly Relaxing at Home but What Will Become of Her Once Nelson Is Gone?

Cats additionally are known to have saved their slumbering owners lives by alerting them to poisonous gas leaks. (See Cat Defender posts of April 23, 2007 and November 12, 2007 entitled, respectively, "Winnie Saves an Indiana Family of Three from Dying of Carbon Monoxide Poisoning" and "Winnie Is Honored as the ASPCA's Cat of the Year for Saving Her Family from Carbon Monoxide Poisoning.")

Like Bacon, countless other felines have saved their owners from being burned to death in their beds. (See Cat Defender post of November 30, 2007 entitled "Cuddles Saves a Saskatchewan Family from a Blaze in a Faulty Fireplace that Destroys Their House.")

At the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, Oscar has voluntarily taken it upon himself to provide solace to the abandoned, forgotten, and dying. (See Cat Defender posts of July 30, 2007 and May 27, 2010 entitled, respectively, "A Visit from Oscar Means that the Grim Reaper Cannot Be Far Behind for the Terminally Ill at a Rhode Island Nursing Home" and "When Lovers, Friends, Health, and All Hope Have Vanished, Oscar Is There for Those Who Have No One and Nothing Left.")

It is more than a little ironic that although Nelson always wanted a cat his wife, anything but a fancier of the species, never would allow him to adopt one. Now that she is gone, Shelly has come along and saved his life. On the other hand, if she were still alive he possibly could have been seriously injured by the snake because, as everyone knows, a woman can hardly be expected to intervene in such perilous circumstances.

Furthermore, in addition to protecting men from vipers, there are at least twenty other perfectly good reasons why that keeping a cat is far preferable to having a woman. (See Cat Defender post of February 17, 2018 entitled "Forget about Women! Adopting a Cat Is a Far More Rewarding Alternative for Some Guys Who Are Searching for Their Forever Valentines.")

Best of all, a cat's love is neither fickle nor dependent upon the size of a man's wallet and it sometimes even endures beyond the grave. (See Cat Defender post of March 28, 2013 entitled "Even the Finality of the Grave Fails to Diminish Toldo's Abiding Love and Devotion for His Long Dead Guardian" and the Daily Mail, September 19, 2017, "Mysterious White Cat Appears at Malaysian Man's Funeral and 'Refuses' to Leave His Grave.")

While it would be premature to suggest that man's love for woman is about to go the way of bobbysocks and Hula-Hoops®, it does appear that members the tender gender have lost some of their allure and that trend extends well beyond old goats and to young bucks as well. (See The Mirror of London, July 30, 2019, "Meet the 'Cat-chelors,' Men Who Believe Cats Take Pressure Off Finding a Partner.")

While aside from monetary considerations there is not any known means of accounting for the pillowing habits of Homo sapiens, the good news as far as women are concerned is that they do not need to fear any competition from snakes. C'est-à-dire, it does not seem likely that very many men are suddenly going a develop a preference for curling up with cold-blooded reptiles as opposed to hot-blooded and voluptuous women, at least not on cold nights.

On second thought, considering how some women behave today a man actually might be better off with a snake. At least his pocketbook would be far healthier.

To his credit, Nelson apparently has finally at long last seen the light. "He loves her," Seals declared unabashedly to WBIR-TV. "He doesn't wanna act like he pays attention but I've caught him actually petting and loving on her."

As far as it is known, Shelly came through her battle with the copperhead unscathed and is believed to presently be in good health. Even so, both vipers and constrictors are most definitely capable of killing cats and in that regard Nelson needs to do a far better job of safeguarding her life.

The best way that he could go about achieving that objective would be for him to snake-proof his house by sealing up any and all cracks and holes that would permit entrée to snakes. Should there be a repeat performance of this sort neither he nor Shelly may live to tell the tale.

An equally pressing concern is his health and what is going to become of Shelly after he is either gone or becomes incapacitated in some way. That is especially the case in that he lives alone and Shelly, apparently, is locked up indoors and therefore does not have any way of getting outside without his assistance.

The fate of cats who have found themselves in similar straits is not pretty to contemplate. (See Cat Defender posts of July 27, 2013 and July 13, 2019 entitled, respectively, "Instead of Killing Her Off with a Jab of Sodium Pentobarbital and Then Burning Her Corpse, Ian Remains Steadfast at His Guardian's Side Long after Her Death" and "Susi Is Knowingly Left All Alone in an Empty Apartment to Slowly Die of Starvation and Untreated Hyperthyroidism after Her Owner Is Confined to an Old Folks' Home.")

Given that in the game of life man is strictly a taker, he never has learned to give back. Consequently, reciprocity is a foreign language as far as he is concerned.

For example, when a fire on early December 31, 2009 engulfed the second-floor apartment of forty-six-year-old Edgar K. and forty-four-year-old Susi S. in Altshausen, Bäden-Württemberg, they were awakened and their lives spared by the heroics of their nine-month-old kitten, Lumpi. In stark contrast to Eliasson's willingness to have saved Bacon's life, they instead ran for their lives and cruelly left him behind to die alone.

"Jetzt verdanken wir ihm unser Leben," Susi S. acknowledged afterwards but that admission in no way helped Lumpi. (See Cat Defender post of April 3, 2010 entitled "Lumpi Is Unforgivably Left to Die in a Burning Apartment by the Ingrates Whose Lives He Saved.")

Shelly's fate now rests in Nelson's hands and it going to be interesting to see if he is willing to remain faithful to her. If he should for any reason be unable to fulfill his filial obligations to her, that solemn responsibility falls by default to Seals and for anyone who pretends to be as religious as she does it would be hypocritical to say the least if she were to attempt to justify abandoning Shelly by arguing that in doing so she was acting on orders from her god.

Both Nelson and Seals owe Shelly a huge debt of gratitude for all that she has done for them and they can only repay it by, first of all, respecting her inalienable right to live out the remainder of her life to the very end. Secondly, they must guarantee that she never lacks for a good home, food, veterinary care, and protection from all cat-haters.

Photos: WBIR-TV (Shelly up close and reclining on a bed) and Teresa Seals (copperhead).