Two Colorado men who routinely work with rattlesnakes are reconsidering their career choices after being bitten and nearly dying.

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Bryon Shipley, 47, a longtime caretaker for reptiles and amphibians at the Denver Zoo was bitten this month while weighing a bagged, radio-tagged prairie rattlesnake on a nature preserve.

The snake lunged and bit him through the bag, which the Denver Post said is a very rare thing for a snake to do.

At the University of Colorado, snake biologist David Chiszar also nearly died on the floor of his laboratory after a rattler got his thumb. He said he wonders if there's something strangely potent in the venom of a few rattlers, or if something makes snake researchers particularly vulnerable to a severe reaction.

Shipley said he has given up tracking snakes, and is considering leaving his zoo job.