Two Clarksville men with stealing an endangered rattlesnake from the Nature Center at O’Bannon Woods State Park after one was bitten during a return trip to steal another snake, Harrison County authorities said.

The snake bit one of the men on his index finger, foiling the plan by sending him to the hospital, the authorities said.

Travis C. Stotts and Dennis H. Watson, both 19, each face charges of felony theft, burglary and misdemeanor unlawful taking or possession of an endangered species. Both are expected to be taken into custody this week, Indiana Conservation Officer Jim Hash said Tuesday.

An attempt to contact Stotts by phone was unsuccessful. A phone number for Watson could not be found.

According to a probable cause affidavit, conservation officers suspected a connection between Stotts, who was was admitted to Harrison County Hospital early May 11 with a snake bite, and a break-in involving a missing rattlesnake reported by O’Bannon staff.

According to court records, Stotts and Watson admitted to Conservation Officer James Schreck that they drove to the park in western Harrison County on May 7 and entered the Nature Center through an unlocked door. They told police that they forced their way into an office, then into the facility’s snake room, where they made off with an Eastern Massasauga rattlesnake in a pillowcase, the records say.

The affidavit also says that the men told conservation officers they returned to the park around midnight May 10, intending to steal a juvenile timber rattler. Watson hoisted Stotts through a rear window, but moments later, “Stotts came running out screaming that he had been bitten,” the affidavit says.

Watson told police that they rushed back toward Corydon, dialing 911 as he drove Stotts in his black Ford Escape. The two agreed to say that they were hunting frogs near the Blue River when Stotts was bitten, the affidavit says.Emergency responders who met the pair at the Wal-Mart parking lot in Corydon and Corydon police officer Mark Bye, who saw the men at Harrison County Hospital, told Schreck later that neither man had mud on his shoes or clothing.

Watson and Stotts told the officers that after Stotts received a shot to treat the bite, he checked himself out of the hospital around 2:30 a.m. May 11, and the pair returned to the park to try to “clean up” after the break-in. While there, they took about two dozen Audubon field guides and nature books.

But the bite took its toll, Hash said in an interview. “Even though he had the anti-venom, you’re going to get real pain and swelling,” Hash said. “His body was really reacting.”

Stotts returned to the hospital and was re-admitted. Schreck reported finding some of the nature books in the hospital room, the affidavit says.

Hash said that when conservation officers interviewed Stotts at his bedside, the skin was stretched tightly over his swollen hand and he had a “Popeye arm,” enlarged well beyond it normal size.