Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Charleston businessman and former West Virginia delegate Doug Skaff is recovering at CAMC General after being bitten twice by venomous snakes on Wednesday afternoon while removing campaign signs in Boone County.
Skaff, who ran for Secretary of State in Tuesday’s primary election, came in second on the Republican ticket.
The first snakebite was through his shoe on his toe.
“I thought I stepped on a nail or glass,” Skaff said on Hoppy Kercheval’s MetroNews Talkline show Thursday morning. He said a second snake bit him on the left calf.
“I’m drained,” Skaff said Thursday. “My left leg, it’s just throbbing. It feels like someone is jabbing a fork in my calf and the pain won’t go away.”
Skaff called in to Kercheval’s show from his hospital bed at the downtown Charleston hospital.
He’s been given anti-venom treatments but, “that really didn’t work,” he said. “Now we’re going to do another dose here in a minute.”
“It hurt more than anything in my life. I’m scared of snakes, by the way.”
As a veteran of several local political campaigns, Skaff said he likes to remove his signs quickly after each election, and was out yesterday with his 7-year-old son, Andrew. But, “I won’t be picking up any signs any time soon.”
Skaff is the president of HD Media, the parent company of the Gazette-Mail.
