Excruciating moment girl is bitten by poisonous viper snake while practicing dance routine (photos/video)

An 18 year-old girl known as Paris Montgomery was attacked by a copperhead snake after she took off her shoes to begin a cheerleading dance in the garden of her home in Houston, Texas, last week.According to Paris' mother, Tracy, who narrated the story, after the poisonous viper bit Paris while she practiced a dance routine, she clenched her foot with pain and recoiled with shock. She then took off her sock to rub the injured foot.

After the bite she restarted her dance routine but had to stop after being overcome with pain.

Tracy’s mother says the snake bit Paris so quickly that she did not realize what had happened, and initially believed her foot had been scratched by a stick.

Paris’ family later rushed her to hospital, where she took anti-venom treatment.

Copperhead snakes are members of the viper family and though they are poisonous, their bites are rarely fatal to humans, although they can cause serious secondary infections if left untreated. Paris speaking to KTRK said: ‘I was about to video myself tumbling, and I was just taking my shoes off, and I stepped on a snake and it bit me. Something just started hurting. I didn’t find out it was a snake. When we got to the emergency room we were trying to find out what happened, and we zoomed in and they told me it was a snake.’ The teenager is now recuperating.