Cody Coots is the head of a Kentucky church where worshippers handle snakes and drink poison to prove their devotion to God
THIS is the horror moment a snake bit - and almost killed- a controversial American pastor who was performing a bizarre service with the reptile in Kentucky.
Drenched in his own blood, Cody Coots had to be carried out of the Full Gospel Tabernacle church, one of the few in the country which still allows snake-handling.
Cody's father Jamie, 42, was killed when a rattlesnake bit him in a similar ritual back in 2014 but that does not put him off performing the same death-defying service.
After he was bitten and collapsed on the ground, Cody asked to be taken to the mountaintop where God would judge whether he should live or die.
But his friend, also named Cody, instead drove him to the hospital where a doctor said the snake came close to severing his temporal artery which would have killed him.
Cody's friend said: "Most people bit in the face are dead in five, ten minutes. I mean, his own daddy got bit in the hand and within seven minutes was dead."
And these chilling scenes were filmed as part of a new documentary entitled My Life Inside: The Snake Church.
The two-part film follows Cody as he recovers from the bite and re-evaluates his life and faith in the wake of his brush with death.
His church's unique way of proving their religious devotion is inspired by the biblical verse in Mark 16:18: "They will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them."
The death of Cody's father thrust him into the pastor's role at the age of just 23, making him the fourth generation to take up the snake-handling vocation.
Cody said: "When the Bible says serpents, it means a poisonous snake. When the old man got bit he died within probably 10 minutes, it’s a nasty bite.
"Every time he’d ever got bitten, I’d never seen him drop a snake. And I’ve seen the snake hit the floor I thought, 'We'll just take him home'.
"He walked back to the bathroom and the last words he did say to me was, 'My face feels like it’s on fire'.
"I stepped out of the bathroom and then I heard a scream and when I went back there he just went limp."
In the US, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that between 7,000 and 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes each year, and about five of those people die.
And in the past six years, there have been three recorded deaths in the US from snake bites during religious services.
Cody’s father Jamie Coots’ was killed in 2014, 60-year-old David Brock died after being bitten at a Pentecostal Church in Kentucky in 2015.
Meanwhile 44-year-old pastor Mack Randall Wolford died after being bitten by a timber rattlesnake during an outdoor religious service in West Virginia in 2012.
Cody and his congregation's beliefs mean they continue to risk their health - and lives - at their Sunday services.
During the services worshippers lay hands on the sick, pray, sing, and listen to sermons led by Pastor Cody, who often picks up snakes from a box and carries one or two of them aloft while he preaches.
As the congregation becomes more and more enraptured by the message, they often shout, sing or even speak in tongues, while praising the Lord.
The service reaches its peak when those who feel moved by the Holy Spirit are invited to come up to the front to handle fire, drink poisons and hold up the snakes for themselves - all while singing and dancing.
Around 14 people regularly worship each Sunday, but services can last between 90 minutes and up to five hours, depending on the fervour and intensity of the occasion.
Cody’s wife Tammy, 25, said: "That church is their blood, you know. It started with their family and it’s going down with their family.
"It is not for me. I wasn’t raised in this religion. I met Cody through my dad and we just clicked. I was just, like, crazy over him.
