Mrs. America contestant bit by snake

TUCSON, Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Tennessee’s representative in the Mrs. America Pageant has decided to continue on in Tucson despite suffering a painful rattlesnake bite.

Christina Ryan said she was avoiding a spider on her way down a staircase she unknowingly stepped near a rattlesnake that bit her on the foot, the Tucson Citizen reported.

"I startled it doing my little spider dance and he bit me," she said. "As soon as it bit me I knew it was a rattlesnake."

She said the 8- to 10-inch long snake even left a fang embedded in her foot above her toe.

Workers at the Tucson Medical Center gave Ryan 10 vials of antivenin and kept her overnight in the intensive care unit, said the Citizen.

She was released the next day but the ordeal wasn't without pain.

"The pain was the worst pain I have ever had, worse than childbirth. It was horrifically bad," she told the newspaper. "It was like someone stabbed a knife in my foot, and kept stabbing it in over and over again."

The preliminary pageant is slated for Sunday and the finals next Wednesday.