Household charged almost $300K for life-saving treatment after rattlesnake bit 2-year-old: ‘I believed he was going to die’

A California household was left rattled once they had been charged almost $300,000 in medical payments after a rattlesnake sank its venomous fangs into their 2-year-old son’s proper hand – requiring almost three dozen vials of antivenom to avoid wasting his life.

The life-saving treatment accounted for $213,278 of the $297,461 whole cost, which additionally included two ambulance rides, an emergency room go to, and days spent in pediatric intensive care, based on KFF Well being Information.

“I believed he was going to die. All of us thought he was going to die,” the boy’s mom, Lindsay Pfeffer, instructed CBS8 in Might.

“Once they began to place pads on to shock him and I noticed his blood stress taking place they usually took the labs and I knew it wasn’t good and his complete arm was black – I don’t need his final reminiscence to be of me screaming.”

Pfeffer was just some ft away from her son, Brigland, when a Southern Pacific Rattlesnake bit the boy’s proper hand between his thumb and index finger as he was enjoying within the household’s San Diego yard in Might. 

Because the poison shortly unfold by way of her son’s 25-pound physique, Pfeffer referred to as 911 and waited for an ambulance to take them to Palomar Medical Heart Escondido 25 minutes away – the closest medical facility that carried antivenom, the retailers reported.

“He was laying down on the sidewalk out entrance; simply flat and sweating and he wasn’t shifting,” Pffefer instructed CBS8.

The snake poison, constricting the boy’s veins, triggered swelling and bruising in his fingers as much as his shoulder, ensuing within the ER workforce utilizing a handheld drill to thrust a needle with the antidote into the boy’s bone marrow once they had been unable to manage the medication by way of an IV, KFF Well being Information reported.

The toddler was transferred to Ray Youngsters’s Hospital – an hour away – as soon as he was secure and remained in intensive take care of a number of days till he recovered.

Whereas the boy obtained 30 vials of Anavip between the 2 hospitals, the medical payments confirmed every facility charged its personal hefty worth for the medication, the outlet reported.

The primary hospital administered 10 vials of Anavip, charging $9,574 per vial, totaling $95,574, with the second hospital, the biggest youngsters’s hospital on the West Coast, charging $5,875 for every of the 20 vials administered, totaling $117,532. 

The household maxed out their medical health insurance plan’s out-of-pocket most to cowl the prices, in the end paying $7,200 for the hospital visits, the outlet reported, however they now owe an extra $11,300 for one of many ambulance transports.

Regardless of the expensive life-saving therapy, the boy’s hand has since healed, although nerve harm and scar tissue have left his proper thumb a lot weaker, the outlet reported.

The household additionally put in snake fencing round their yard.

“He’s very, very fortunate,” Pfeffer mentioned.