Rosemary Shrager bitten by an adder after falling into a bush during 'foolhardy' 450-mile bike ride - leaving leg ‘black and yellow' with its venom

Daily Mail​

30-06-2025

Rosemary Shrager recalled the moment she was bitten by an adder after she fell into a bush during a 450-mile bike ride.
The TV chef featured on Monday's instalment of Loose Women and joined panellists Ruth Langsford, Linda Robson, Oti Mabuse and Katie Piper.
She recently completed a whopping bike ride called Two Wheels For Meals and rode for 18 days all the way from Land's End to Dover to raise funds to donate to food poverty charities.
To prepare for the big ride, Rosemary trained and worked on her fitness, but she 'kept falling off her bike'.
Things took a turn when she fell onto an unsuspecting snake while cycling in Cornwall.
'I fell onto an adder and it did bite me... on my leg,' Rosemary recalled.
'The problem was I didn't dare tell anyone, this was in Cornwall I fell into a hedge and my leg went into the grass and I literally fell on the adder.'
She added: 'It just obviously didn't like me, it bit me.'
However, the TV chef revealed she didn't tell anyone as she wanted to continue the journey.
'But I didn't want to tell anyone because I had to get from that destination to that destination everyday it was sometimes 55 miles, sometimes 48, it was a lot,' Rosemary said.
The bite mark on her leg turned yellow and she even developed a 'black line'.
She described: 'Basically I had to make it. I thought if I told them, then in the evening I saw it and it was that big, it was yellow, two prongs in my leg with a black line about that thick all the way around it and I couldn't believe it and I thought no, I'm not going to say anything I'm just going to carry on.'
Ruth asked: 'Weren't you worried it had poisoned you or something?'
To prepare for the big ride, Rosemary trained and worked on her fitness, but she 'kept falling off her bike'
But Rosemary revealed she wasn't too concerned as she was aware adder bites usually aren't dangerous to most people.
'I wasn't because I do know the adders in this country, you can't really die from the bite but you can become quite ill,' She explained.
'If you do have an adder bite, go to hospital straight away. I was foolhardy because I was on this mission and I knew they'd take me off the challenge and if they had taken me off the challenge I would have never had made it.'
According to The Wildlife Trusts, the adder is the UK's only venomous snake and is typically only dangerous to ill, very young or old people.
They urge anyone bitten to seek medical attention immediately.
Rosemary wrote in The Daily Mail earlier this month how she lost three stone from changing her lifestyle for the bike ride.
'Nine months after I started training, I'm more than three stone lighter and four dress sizes smaller,' she said.
However, she revealed it wasn't just exercise that helped her to shed the pounds, a weight loss jab.
Rosemary penned: 'And while I can credit perseverance plus the support of a personal trainer and cycling partner, I have something else to thank for my achievements – Ozempic.'
Loose Women airs weekdays on ITV1 from 12:30pm to 1:30pm and is available to stream on ITVX.