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Rio Ebinger knew his dad was in trouble when he asked Rio where his hat was.

"It was on his head," Rio said. "And he asked for it when we first got into the raft."

Eric Ebinger and 10-year-old Rio were camping along the Flathead River between Dixon and Perma last Saturday when Eric was bitten by a rattlesnake.

"I was squatting on the bank leaning my fishing pole against a rock and felt a pinprick on my thigh," Ebinger said Tuesday, as he elevated his swollen and purple leg on a nearby chair. "I was just wishing and praying for it to be over."

Trying to remain calm, Ebinger got into the raft while his son loaded their gear and began rowing the almost half-mile across the swift current of the Flathead to their car.

Ebinger fashioned a tourniquet out of rope and tried to deal with the waves of tingling pain, nausea and abdominal cramps as the venom took hold and made his leg swell to the size of two watermelons.

"It just felt like pins and needles," Ebinger said. "You can't imagine the abdominal cramps."

Alone at the helm of the raft, Rio Ebinger began to cry.