Son lures dad to edge of cliff to look at snake then pushes him off, Texas police say

A 78-year-old man in Texas is recovering after his son shoved him off a cliff Sunday, police say.

Gerald McCants, 49, left the family home in the morning and returned a short time later, beckoning his 78-year-old father to go with him to see a rattlesnake he’d found, KXAN reported.

McCants drove the two of them a half-mile from their Austin home and stopped along the road, KVUE reported. Police said McCants lured his father to a cliff several yards from the road explaining that the snake was down below.

When the man peeked over the edge of the cliff to see the snake, McCants shoved him off, police said, according to the Austin American-Statesman. He fell an estimated 40 feet and landed in dense brush, the outlet reported.

The man told police he heard McCants laughing as he fell, according to KXAN.

When medics arrived, they initially thought the man only had minor injuries, but after retrieving him declared a trauma alert and rushed him to an area hospital, Austin-Travis County EMS wrote in a Twitter post.

The man suffered deep cuts to the back of his head and his forehead as well as abrasions across his body, KVUE reported.

McCants was arrested and charged with injury to an elderly person, the Statesman reported. His bail was set at $20,000.