HARTFORD, Conn. (NEWSnet/AP) — A Connecticut man is recovering after he was bitten by a snake on the road that he was trying to save to avoid it from getting run over. 

The attempted good deed landed him in the hospital in a medically induced coma after the timber rattlesnake, which is rare in the Northeast, bit his hand when he threw a shirt over it and tried to pick it up, said his former girlfriend and the mother of his daughter.

Joseph Ricciardella reportedly called her on Sunday to say he had just been bitten and was driving to the hospital.

She said it happened as Ricciardella was driving from a park in upstate New York to his home in Torrington, Connecticut, about 25 miles west of Hartford.

It isn’t clear exactly where the encounter happened because he hasn’t been able to speak in detail yet to family and friends, the former girlfriend said.

Ricciardella, 45, a father of four who runs a landscaping business and has no medical insurance, went into cardiac arrest, was resuscitated and was later placed into a medically induced coma after being flown from a hospital in Torrington to one in Hartford.

Doctors brought him out of the coma on Tuesday, but he remained intubated and sedated because of swelling from the venom, the woman said.

The timber rattlesnake is one of two venomous snakes found in Connecticut — the other being the northern copperhead — and is extremely rare, according to the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection. The snake is listed as endangered and is illegal to kill or collect. Rattlesnake bites are also extremely rare in the state, the agency said.

Joseph Ricciardella’s family has set up a GoFundMe page that has raised more than $5,000 so far to pay his medical bills.

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