Bob Ross has been catching poisonous snakes for decades, so when a 4-foot-long diamondback slithered into his family's camp at Conchas Reservoir nearly two weeks ago, he thought he knew what to do.

"I attempted to expertly remove it and I got expertly bitten ... in the web between the thumb and forefinger on the right hand," he said.

Ross, 61, was taken to Tucumcari, where he was given a first round of antivenomand flown to Albuquerque for more.

This week, he is recovering at his home on the south side of Santa Fe. "It was absolutely awful," he said. "I thought I might die or I might lose my right arm because if the swelling gets much worse, they might have to remove it. So it could have been an absolute catastrophe, but it looks like I'm going to come through it 100 percent OK."

The amateur historian, retired from teaching at the Penitentiary of New Mexico, said he began collecting snakes at age 7 in his native New Jersey and caught his first rattlesnake near Albuquerque's West Mesa volcanoes as a graduate philosophy student at The University of New Mexico.

"We're walking out there and we ran into a good-sized diamondback rattlesnake, so I invented a technique which I should have used the other night," he said. "I hung a glove off of a stick and I allowed the snake to strike at it many times until the glove actually started to get a little moist. By that time, I realized he had shot most of his venom out, so then I held him down with a stick and grabbed him behind the head picked him up. We took a picture of him and I still have that picture to this day."

Ross, who estimated he has captured a half-dozen rattlers that way, said that on July 13 he didn't try to get the snake to empty its venom glands because it was dark and he was "panicked" about the four children under 5 in his family camping group of about 20 people. So, he said, he swept the diamondback out from under a car where it had tried to hide, used the broom to hold its head to the ground and tried to grab it behind the head.

"I thought I'll just go in and get him because I've never failed to get one before," he said. "Well, I failed. I didn't get a good grip behind his head and he was able to kind of turn around and latch on to my hand. So then I grabbed him with the other hand and pulled him off of me and I can literally see the fangs backing out of my skin."

Ross said his right hand quickly became paralyzed and began to hurt. One family member killed the snake with a carving knife and put the head in a plastic bag for identification. Another wanted to cut into Ross' hand and use a snakebite kit to suck out the venom. But Ross said he knew that might do more harm than good, so he insisted on being taken to the hospital immediately. "Luckily, we had a satellite cell phone and we were able to call 911 and they sent an ambulance out to the lake," he said.

At Dr. Dan Trigg Memorial Hospital in Tucumcari, Ross was given morphine to kill the increasing pain in his right arm and the entire right side of his body that was beginning to swell. He got an initial round of antivenom, then was flown to University Hospital in Albuquerque — what Ross says is the best toxicology center in the region.

Even after he finished the antivenom treatments, Ross said, his body remained swollen and subject to strange blisters, including one beneath his right arm that was as large as a tennis ball. "The body is trying to get rid of all this liquid," he said. "The swelling went around my entire abdomen and my entire lower back to the point where it looked like I was turning into a little fatso."

By Tuesday, eight days after the bite, Ross felt better and had begun to put the incident in perspective. He said the ordeal hasn't made him swear off rattlesnakes, but the next time he tries to capture one, he won't be overconfident, will take his time and make sure the viper's venom is exhausted.

"Everybody felt that it was strange to see Uncle Bob screw up with a snake," Ross said. "It was a very rattlesnakey area. ... If any one of the children had been bitten, they would have died. It was almost as if the Lord was basically saying, 'I'm going to let Uncle Bob take a hit so all of you will clear out of here.' "

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.