Family charged nearly $300K for life-saving cure after rattlesnake bit 2-year-old: ‘I thought he was going to die’

A California family was left rattled when they were charged nearly $300,000 in medical bills after a rattlesnake sank its venomous fangs into their 2-year-old son’s right hand – requiring nearly three dozen vials of antivenom to save his life.

The life-saving cure accounted for $213,278 of the $297,461 total payment, which also included two ambulance rides, an emergency room visit, and days spent in pediatric intensive care, according to KFF Health News.

“I thought he was going to die. We all thought he was going to die,” the boy’s mother, Lindsay Pfeffer, told CBS8 in May.

“When they started to put pads on to shock him and I saw his blood pressure going down and they took the labs and I knew it wasn’t good and his whole arm was black – I don’t want his last memory to be of me screaming.”

Pfeffer was just a few feet away from her son, Brigland, when a Southern Pacific Rattlesnake bit the boy’s right hand between his thumb and index finger as he was playing in the family’s San Diego backyard in May. 

As the poison quickly spread through her son’s 25-pound body, Pfeffer called 911 and waited for an ambulance to take them to Palomar Medical Center Escondido 25 minutes away – the closest medical facility that carried antivenom, the outlets reported.

“He was laying down on the sidewalk out front; just flat and sweating and he wasn’t moving,” Pffefer told CBS8.

The snake poison, constricting the boy’s veins, caused swelling and bruising in his fingers up to his shoulder, resulting in the ER team using a handheld drill to thrust a needle with the antidote into the boy’s bone marrow when they were unable to administer the medicine through an IV, KFF Health News reported.

The toddler was transferred to Ray Children’s Hospital – an hour away – once he was stable and remained in intensive care for several days until he recovered.

While the boy received 30 vials of Anavip between the two hospitals, the medical bills showed each facility charged its own hefty price for the medicine, the outlet reported.

The first hospital administered 10 vials of Anavip, charging $9,574 per vial, totaling $95,574, with the second hospital, the largest children’s hospital on the West Coast, charging $5,875 for each of the 20 vials administered, totaling $117,532. 

The family maxed out their health insurance plan’s out-of-pocket maximum to cover the costs, ultimately paying $7,200 for the hospital visits, the outlet reported, but they now owe an additional $11,300 for one of the ambulance transports.

Despite the costly life-saving treatment, the boy’s hand has since healed, though nerve damage and scar tissue have left his right thumb much weaker, the outlet reported.

The family also installed snake fencing around their yard.

“He’s very, very lucky,” Pfeffer said.