TV chef Rosemary Shrager has revealed that she was bitten by an adder on her leg after she fell off her bike on a huge 450-mile charity ride.
The 74-year-old appeared on Monday’s (30 June) edition of Loose Women, where she recalled her ordeal to panellists Ruth Langsford, Linda Robson, Katie Piper and Oti Mabuse.
Shrager, whose shows include Ladette to Lady and Soapstar Superchef, had recently completed a charity bike ride called Two Wheels For Meals, which consisted of her cycling from Land's End to Dover to raise money for food poverty charities.
Things took a turn for the worse when she tumbled into a bush and onto an unsuspecting snake in Cornwall.
“I fell onto an adder and it did bite me... on my leg,” Shrager explained. “The problem was I didn't dare tell anyone, this was in Cornwall, I fell into a hedge and my leg went into the grass and I literally fell on the adder. It just obviously didn't like me, it bit me.”
Shrager said that she was reluctant to tell anyone because she wanted to continue her journey. “I had to get from that destination to that destination every day. It was sometimes 55 miles, sometimes 48, it was a lot,” she explained.
The bite caused Shrager’s leg to turn yellow and there was a “thick black line” from the two prong marks. Despite this, she still continued with the bike ride.
After she was asked if she was worried about being poisoned, Shrager said that she wasn’t, as “I do know the adders in this country, you can't really die from the bite but you can become quite ill”.
“If you do have an adder bite, go to hospital straight away. I was foolhardy because I was on this mission and I knew they'd take me off the challenge and if they had taken me off the challenge I would have never had made it.”
During her bike ride, Shrager told the BBC that it was the “hardest thing I've ever done” and that she fell over six times.
In 2022, doctors warned that venomous snake bites had been on the rise in the UK due to an upsurge in people keeping exotic species as pets, doctors have warned.
Snakes cause more injuries and deaths than any other venomous animal, including spiders, scorpions and jellyfish, according to a study published in Clinical Toxicology.
In just over a decade, 321 cases involving 68 different species were registered by the National Poisons Information Service (NPIS).
The victims included 72 people under the age of 18, of whom 13 were just five years old or younger.
Advice to NHS healthcare professionals on managing exotic snakebites is available in the UK on a 24-hour basis through the NPIS.
The RSPCA has advised that if anyone finds a snake they believe to be non-native to the UK, keep a safe distance, monitor the snake and call the charity’s helpline on 0300 1234 999 or a local reptile charity.
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