ST. JOHNS COUNTY, Fla. -- The Walden Chase neighborhood is a popular area for children to play. Students often use a sand trail get to and from school.

It's also where neighbors said a freshman coming home from Nease High School was bitten in the hand by what they believe may have been a pygmy rattlesnake.

"He (the bitten student) said he's familiar with rattlesnakes," resident Susan Walker said. "He knows it was a rattlesnake. He knows what to do, and he could handle it."

Walker said the teen was sprawled out on her driveway, and much to her surprise, he was using a shoelace to tie a tourniquet around his arm.

"I ran back into the house," Walker said. "They'd already called 911. I had a medical book about snake bites, and he'd been doing everything the book had said. He did everything right."

Resident John Mcalpine said in just the last three years, he's seen at least a half-dozen snakes in his own yard.

"When we see them, we're very careful," Mcalpine said. "We try to kill them. We put out snake repellant, and we warn the kids about staying out of the sand trail as much as possible. Be aware of what's going on."

Experts said the small snake is known to be aggressive, and while it's bites are usually not life-threatening, they are extremely painful.

"Anti-venom is the only way to treat it," said Jeremy Humphrey, who works with snakes. "You can slow the effects by using a tourniquet, keeping limbs below the heart, sucking and squeezing any venom out. It's the best way to slow it down until an ambulance gets there."

Rescuers said they weren't able to confirm whether it was a rattlesnake bite, but they were treating it as such until they could get the teen to the hospital.