The natural pedantry returns

OK, there's that Comcast commercial where the guy has a blackened foot, sitting in what appears to be a mountain lodge with a fire burning. He calls some doctor or poison control and asks if the status of his foot has changed because now he's calling on Comcast digital voice, and the lady asks if he still got bit by a pit viper, he says yes, and she says his foot is still going to fall off.

I have a few questions...

1) Is the actor playing the victim of the pit viper bite Graham Beckel? He's been in a million things, but I remember him best as Dick Stensland, Russell Crowe's partner in LA Confidential. That guy's had a steady career as a character actor. Am I wrong to think he should be above a Comcast commercial?

2) OK, it's clear that the guy's foot is completely black. It appears that he's in a mountain cabin. There's a fire burning, and the men are all wearing flannel. Why did they use as his malady a pit viper bite? Pit Vipers are cold blooded, and hibernate in the winter, and can't really live in mountain climes. Plus, wouldn't frostbite be a more logical malady? Especially when it actually looks like frostbite, not a snakebite.

Yes. I pay far too much attention to things like this.