CAMERON - Like an evil jack-in-the-box, a western diamondback rattlesnake is poised and ready to spring, its buzzing tail reciting the familiar incantation - the chilling alarm that its hollow incisors are ready to dispense lethal venom.

These reviled and feared reptiles are famous for their dramatics, but the shocking, painful fang-to-flesh encounter that Lynne McCullin suffered last year occurred without the snake