Snake Selfie Ends with $153K Medical Bill

There is a price for everything and, apparently, a snake selfie ends with $153k medical bill along with a very nasty, painful and potentially lethal bite. That is to be expected. Or at least it should have been, but Todd Fassler apparently expected a much more different outcome when he tried to snap a selfie of himself and a rattlesnake.

It’s unfortunately not the first reported case of an injury when a person attempted to take a selfie with a wild animal. A woman was flipped over by a bison in her attempt at Yellowstone National Park and visitors of Lake Tahoe had to be warned to stop trying to snap selfies with bears after several incidents.

The man situated in San Diego, has claimed to have owned a pet rattlesnake for an entire year previous to the incident, before he decided let it go back into the wild. Perhaps that gave him the false confidence of anticipating the behavior of a dangerous and wild animal, which has rapidly led him to the hospital. After finding a different snake in a nearby bush, Fassler proceeded to pull it in plain view and attempted to take a picture with it.

While framing the shot and likely ignoring the vicious rattling of its tail that is typically a warning for that particular species, the snake violently bit the side of the man’s arm and injected its venom. And from then on, it was likely pure hell.

Fassler admitted to feeling the harsh consequences of the snake’s bite, difficulty breathing, shaking, sensation of paralysis, tongue out and eyes haphazardly to the side, all joined by the widely-spread bruising that turned three quarters of his arm purple.

He was taken urgently to the hospital and it required several doses of the anti-venom drug CroFab in order to keep him alive. It is currently the only existent anti-venom to counter rattlesnake bites, which means that supplies are limited and the price is quite substantial.

Different quantities of anti-venom are required for different snake bite victims. Reportedly, Fassler needed two hospitals’ worth of anti-venom supply to stay alive.

The medical bill following his attempt at snapping an adventurous and daring shot was of $153,000, with over $83,000 of those only to cover the cost of the required doses. The rest of the bill covered other “special services”, room charges for intermediate, intensive and emergency care, along with therapy and radiology. And, since there has been no picture surfacing the web, it’s assumed that he didn’t get his selfie either.

Source: Apex Tribune