Christina Ryan has always been most afraid of spiders, but now rattlesnakes top her list. The 28-year-old beauty queen from Franklin was bitten by a rattlesnake at 9 a.m. Sunday, while walking to a rehearsal for the Mrs. America pageant at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson, Ariz.
Ryan was rushed to the hospital and admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at Tucson Medical Center.
Quick treatment with antivenin, rest and prayer allowed her to be released by noon on Monday, Ryan said.
"I was on my way to rehearsal, and I'm scared of spiders, because I was bit by a brown recluse as a kid," Ryan said in a telephone call from Tucson Monday evening.
"I saw a spider, and it gave me the heebie jeebies. I ran, and by the time I got to the bottom of the stairs, something bit my foot, and I knew it was a rattlesnake."
Ryan said "instinct" told her it was a rattlesnake, even before she looked down and saw the snake.
Ryan ran back up the stairs, hysterical. There, other Mrs. America contestants called 911 and tended to her.
"Mrs. Idaho pulled a fang out of my foot," Ryan said.
Emergency medical personnel responded within four minutes of the 911 call.
Ryan, the mother of an 18-month-old girl, Audrey, said the pain of the rattlesnake's bite was excruciating.
"It hurt worse than childbirth," she said. "It was bad. It was the worst thing I've experienced in my whole life. It felt like someone was taking a knife and continually stabbing my foot, then pushing on it."
Ryan's foot is still stiff and swollen, and she must have her blood rechecked by doctors later this week to make sure the antivenin is working properly. Delayna Bridges, executive director of the Mrs. Tennessee America Pageant, said the speed of Ryan's recovery will allow the beauty queen and event planner from Franklin to move forward in the Mrs. America pageant.
"She will be able to compete, as the first competition — interviews — is not until this Saturday," Bridges said. "She will then compete in preliminary evening gown and swimsuit on Sunday night."
Christina Ryan's husband, Mickey Ryan, who jokingly refers to himself as "Mr. Tennessee," wrote in an e-mail message to The Leaf-Chronicle Monday that his wife plans to bring the Mrs. America crown back to Tennessee, but "will gladly leave behind the fang that was left in her foot by the snake." The final competition, at which a new Mrs. America will be crowned, is Sept. 5.
Asked if she had a message for those in her home state, Christina Ryan was all gratitude.
"I miss everybody. I'm so thankful for everyone's prayers. That's literally the only way I've gotten through this," she said. "It's definitely a God thing. Most people who are bitten by snakes are in the hospital two or three days. I was out in 24 hours."
