Lorraine Jonsson's Miraculous Survival
She was given just 5 percent chance of living
That, and her sense of gratitude. She rattles off the names of her doctors and expresses her undying love for each of them: internist Dr. Rafael Lefkowitz, the ER docs, the pharmacist.
Jonsson, who is in her 50s, works as an architectural designer, but she has developed a scientist's keen interest in venomous reptiles. And perhaps the evangelist's need to tell her tale: Her application to be on Discovery TV show I Shouldn't Be Alive is pending.
In terms of public safety, the National Parks Service didn't move terribly fast. Snake fences eventually were erected, but NPS never did shake out the scaly offender. The woods are big, and snakes are small. He was long gone.
"By the way, none of the things that they tell you to do would have helped. 'Don't move. Stay on the trail.' If I'd done that, I'd be dead," Jonsson says.
These days, the warming weather and the approach of spring snake season have put her in a philosophical mood.
"I don't have any bad feelings toward him. We ran into each other at the wrong place at the wrong time." They simply shared a moment. "I feel in some way kind of close to that snake because of the experience he brought me," she muses. "Though I may not feel so generous if I didn't have a leg."
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