The Middlesboro, Kentucky preacher who starred in a reality show about snake-handling died Saturday night after being bitten by a snake.

The Middlesboro Police Department said that at around 8 p.m., they responded to a possible snake bite at the Full Gospel Tabernacle in Jesus [sic] Name church, but that its pastor, the star of the National Geographic Channel’s Snake Salvation, Jamie Coots, had already left the scene by the time they arrived.

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EMS responders then went to Coots’s home, where he was found suffering from what they believed was a snake bite. They attempted to administer treatment, but Coots refused on account of his belief that God would not allow him to die from a snake bite.

He died at his home at approximately 10 p.m.

Snake-handlers believe that their ability to hold, and occasionally dance with snakes comes from what are called “the signs of the gospels,” which are found in Mark 16: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.”

Coots starred in Snake Salvation alongside Andrew Hamblin of the Tabernacle Church of God in Tennessee.

Watch a video of the late Coots and Hamblin handing snakes from The Tennessean below.