Is coming across wildlife cool and exciting? Sure it is! But you may want to reconsider putting yourself into harm's way just to get that perfect photo for your Instagram. One man found this out the hard way. He tried to take a selfie with a rattlesnake after stumbling across it instead of you know, running in the other direction.
His lack of caution landed the man in the hospital. The rattlesnake bit the selfie-taker. And since it's a venomous viper, the man quickly realized that he needed urgent medical attention. Unfortunately for the selfie taker, that urgent medical condition also carried a hefty price tag as well. The man ended up with a very large hospital bill.
Dr. Keith Boesen, director of the Arizona Poison & Drug Information Center, told CBS New. "The only effective treatment is anti-venom. There's blood tests we can do to determine the effect of the venom. Hospital bills can always be worked out or negotiated, but you can't really negotiate, other than prosthetics, the loss of part of your hand or your arm."
Rattlesnake Price
So basically, you either get an anti-venom treatment or you die potentially. And treatment isn't just one vial and done. Doctors sometimes have to administer multiple vials of antivenom to treat a snake bite. Boesen said that one victim required 74 anti-venom vials to survive their snake bite. In the case of the selfie taker, it's unknown how many vials he ended up with.
However, his hospital bill showed quite the hefty price. Doctors charged him over $83,000 for 'pharmacy'. Meanwhile, they also charged $22,433.00 for lab services, $21,225.00 for intermediate care room, and $17,766.00 for intensive care.
In total, it was $153,161.25 for the hospital bill. The amount ended up going viral online after people were outraged.
"US healthcare system is embarrassing," one person wrote. Another wrote, "Under pharmacy charges did the person buy shares in its store?"
"Healthcare is broken," a third wrote.
"It seems weird to me the hospital can charge this with any reasonable expectation of being paid this amount," Yet another wrote. "This is more than the average household earns in nearly 3 years, TOTAL."
