$143,000 Snake Bite Bill Stuns Victim "My jaw was dropping down," Dag-Are Trydal told 10News. He was stunned to receive the large bill after being bitten by a rattlesnake. "I thought maybe $10,000," he estimated. In Norway, he noted, "it would have been free. A Norwegian exchange student is receiving international attention after being bitten by a snake and receiving a $143,000 hospital bill. The large figure stems from the use of two antivenin drugs that were used to save his life. "My jaw was dropping down," Dag-Are Trydal told 10News. He was stunned to receive the large bill after being bitten by a rattlesnake. "I thought maybe $10,000," he estimated. In Norway, he noted, "it would have been free." Trydal was walking back to his car when he felt a sudden pain. "I stepped two steps back just immediately, and I was seeing that a snake was sitting right between my flip-flops. As I was walking over [to the nearby Scripps Hospital], my heart started thumping and I could feel a tingling in my body and a metallic taste in my mouth," he said. He was treated with four doses of two separate antivenin drugs, one totaling $102,440 and another $25,610. "This is way too much, at least for a person that doesn't have good insurance," Trydal explained. A spokesperson for the hospital told 10News that Trydal's "insurance company has not yet paid the bill, and Scripps is in negotiations with the company for the final amount. The patient will not be billed by Scripps." Trydal is grateful to be alive, though, especially in light of the death of a West Virginia preacher who practiced snake handling. Mark Randall Wolford, 44, died after a fatal rattlesnake bite. He had been bitten once before by a copperhead, but survived that ordeal. "I don't think anyone necessarily expected it," Lauren Pond told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph. She was one of 25 people who witnessed Wolford being bitten. "They've dealt with it before, so maybe it's not such a huge shock." "A common misunderstanding is that handlers believe they can't get bit or it won't kill them," Ralph Hood, a religion professor, told NOLA.com. "This is how he would have wanted to die." Personally dying from a snake bite is no way for any person to die.....
Lets not forget that people are risking their lives every time they extract venom from these snakes. If that was your chosen profession, I would suspect you would put a pretty hefty price on that as well. Not to mention, that's the bill going to the insurance company. I'm sure they will negotiate down the price, then bill their customer accordingly.
I wanted to do that as a herpetologist, extract and make anti-venom, but teachers told me it was no money in it. You know that a vial of Rattle Snake Anti-venom cost $2000-4000 dollars. And that you have to milk lab kept specimens 4 of them to make 1 vial. and to make 1 vial of anti-venom for a Black Widow Spider you will need to milk 30 of them at $40-50.00. Yet the Black Widow Spider anti-venom is nearly twice as expensive if you are treated for it's bite. And to make the anti-venom in most cases it's injected into a horse then drawn from the horse blood to make the anti-venom.
1,000,000 people are bitten by snakes in Africa annually, with over 40,000 dying from those bites. Antivenom for Black Mamba's is expensive in Africa, even by western standards. One vial of antivenom costs around £45 or $70. It takes around 5 vials to treat someone who has been bitten by a Black Mamba.
What knucklehead wears FLIP FLOPS in rattlesnake country??? Agreed the price sounds a bit inflated, but maybe the Norwegian Gubbermint will cover his costs??? Or maybe he can just go back to Norway, and never pay it... That's what the Mexicans do everyday and it's part of why healthcare costs are high, hospitals in California have gone out of business, and an ER visit may take 24 hours in some places... We are REQUIRED to provide care for people, who in turn may opt not to pay... Sort of like feeding a stray dog when you don't have enough money to feed your own dog.... Everytime the stray shows up you give it food, yet when your own dog is hungry you can only feed it half of the time. Agreed that the first video is more CULT than Christianity in my eyes...
Healthcare is the way it is because of the abusers. Dude shouldnt have been wearing flipflops, and is now *****ing about being alive.
