MY VENOMOUS SNAKEBITE––What happened next and how much it cost

The sun had long set as I bent beside a tree to help hoist a plastic tub filled with firewood, when I suddenly felt a searing pain and jumped back.

“Something bit me!” I yelled. My friend Lizette trained her flashlight on the ground, and sure enough, I recognized it immediately as a copperhead. We retreated to our campsite about 30 feet away, where my friend Carol told me to sit down so that she could inspect my heel and wash the two distinct fang marks, dripping blood. Damn! A venomous snakebite! I’ve been a camper my whole life, but I never expected to be bitten at my campsite. At night. On a crowded weekend.

But after the initial strike, I felt surprisingly little pain. I’d always assumed that a venomous snakebite would hurt like hell, kind of like being stung by 100 wasps all at once. Instead, my pain was minimal, so much so that I announced that I intended to spend the night in my tent-trailer. It was probably the adrenaline. My brain was most certainly befuddled. But I’d been through worse, like giving birth. I later learned that had it been a rattlesnake, the pain could have been excruciating.

A snakebite means going to the hospital

Alarmed by my wishful musings that all was fine, Carol called our local hospital, LMH Health, to ask what we should do. The answer was to come right in. While Lizette stayed at the campsite with my dog, Heidi, Carol drove me 40 minutes in the dark to the emergency room.

They also began monitoring my foot. Apparently, some venomous snakebites are “dry,” meaning no venom is ejected with the bite. Cool! I remember thinking. I didn’t know that.

But after an hour, my foot had swelled, and red-dotted streaks began running up my foot–a telltale sign that venom molecules were traveling from the puncture wounds through my lymphatic system, which, if left untreated, could lead to tissue damage or worse.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that in the United States, 7,000 to 8,000 people are bitten by venomous snakes every year. About five of those people die. But even more people would die if they did not seek medical care. According to an article on the American Family Physician website, about 70 percent of those bitten by venomous snakes in this country require an antivenom. I’ve found that what people pay for that treatment varies widely.

Virtually all the venomous snakes in this country are pit vipers, most commonly rattlesnakes, copperheads, cottonmouths/water moccasins, and coral snakes. Rattlesnakes are the largest venomous snakes in the United States, generally between two and five feet long. According to the CDC, a rattlesnake can strike one-third or more of its body length, whether from a coiled or stretched-out position. Furthermore, rattlesnake bites can cause rapid tissue destruction, internal bleeding, systemic shock, and, if left untreated, death. The CDC says that approximately 10% to 44% of people bitten by rattlesnakes will suffer lasting injuries.  

Luckily, all I tangled with was a copperhead. Copperheads, which account for the majority of venomous snakebites in this country, are generally about 1.5 to three feet long. They’re not usually aggressive but will strike if they feel threatened. I probably stepped on the poor thing. Lizette, who risked her life to take a photo of the snake, estimated it to be somewhat small. Maybe that’s why I fared so well.

Symptoms of a venomous snakebite

According to the CDC, after a venomous snakebite (called envenomation), you might experience severe pain and tenderness, and around the fang puncture you might see bleeding, redness, swelling, bruising, or blistering.

In worst-case scenarios, you might also experience nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, a rapid heart rate, weak pulse, or low blood pressure. You might have trouble seeing or breathing or you mouth might have a metallic, mint, or rubber taste. You could have increased salivation and sweating, a numbness or tingling around the face or limbs, or muscle twitching.

Before any of this happens, however, you should call 911 or be on your way to the hospital. Even if you know the snake is nonvenomous, if its fangs broke skin, you should still get a tetanus shot. If possible, you should also wash the bite with soap and water and cover it with a clean, dry dressing.

What you should NEVER do following a snakebite

According to Mayo Clinic, it’s OK to take acetaminophen (Tylenol) to ease the pain, but you should never take aspirin or ibuprofen because they increase the risk of severe bleeding. You also shouldn’t drink alcohol because it dilates blood vessels, though you might be sorely tempted.

In researching this article, I was surprised to read how many people were bitten while handling or interacting with venomous snakes. A man in Missouri died in 2012 while trying to remove a copperhead from a tent along the Current River (which I’ve canoed numerous times). Some people die trying to kill venomous snakes. Some die from venomous snakes kept as pets, including Black Mambas.

Others die while handling venomous snakes as part of religious ceremonies, like Mark Wolford, bitten by his pet timber rattlesnake during an outdoor service. Remarkably, his own father died from a snakebite under similar circumstances. And believe it or not, they’re not the only ones to die handling venomous snakes during religious ceremonies. Although Wikipedia shouldn’t be the last gospel, its list of fatal bites in the United States makes for fascinating if rather horrifying reading. Most deaths are from rattlesnakes.

Besides NOT picking up the snake or trying to trap it (even a dead one or its decapitated head can still inject venom), you should never slash open the wound and try to suck out the venom. You should not apply a tourniquet. You should not ice the wound or immerse it in water. You should not raise the snake bite area above the heart.

My vintage venomous snakebite kit makes for a good laugh

Maybe that’s why nobody thought it a good idea to fetch my vintage snakebite kit, which had been hanging around my camping gear since 1988. When I finally inspected it last week, I found a vial of probably worthless antiseptic, a small scalpel, suction cups to squeeze out the venom, a “lymph constrictor” to tie off above the wound and restrict lymph flow, and pretty scary instructions. The person making the incision is advised, “DON’T BE SLASH HAPPY!” The disclaimer includes, “Every procedure suggested here has been recommended and condemned in the confused literature of snakebite treatment.” Furthermore, cautions continue, misuse of the lymph constrictor or infection from the snake fangs or incision could lead to gangrene and even amputation. Maybe my kit belongs in a museum.

My antivenom treatment in the hospital

According to handouts I received from my hospital upon checkout, the effects of envenomation vary depending on the type and size of the snake yet can be serious or even deadly. In any case, a venomous snakebite is a medical emergency and can damage tissues or blood vessels, prevent blood from clotting, break down muscles, or cause damage to the nervous system.

For those reasons, after I was given a tetanus shot, blood was drawn, those red streaks appeared, and an anticoagulant was injected into my wealth of stomach fat, the doctor ordered four vials of CroFab. CroFab is an antivenom (also called antivenin) that binds to and neutralizes venom toxins, which prevents those toxins from binding to tissues and causing serious blood, tissue, and nervous system problems.

Because CroFab uses four snake species to produce its antivenom, it can work against any pit viper native to North America, so it’s not snake-specific. In other words, you don’t have to know the species of the snake that bit you. In an article I read about venomous snakebites so far this year in North Carolina (almost 600 and still counting), a plea is made NOT to bring the snake to the hospital.

What is antivenom?

According to the World Health Organization, antivenoms work by boosting our immune response after a venomous snakebite. They’re made by injecting donor animals like sheep or horses with snake venom, which triggers their immune systems to produce antibodies. These antibodies are then harvested and purified from the donor animals’ plasma. When given to snakebite patients, the antivenom binds to venom toxins and neutralizes them, enabling the patients’ own immune defenses to eliminate the toxins.

Antivenom is best if delivered within four hours of the venomous snakebite, but the earlier the better. As the saying goes, “Time is tissue.”

CroFab is a sheep-derived antivenin, which I received via a slow-dripping IV. It took about an hour, during which a nurse had to be present to make sure there were no adverse effects like bleeding or allergic reactions. Luckily, the only reactions I had were a swelling of my lower lip, a moment of nausea, and pain along the side of my foot.

The cost of antivenom

The doctor treating me at the hospital told me that the cost of antivenom would be high. How high? Around $40,000.

According to a 2015 article I read in Smithsonian magazine, called “Why a Single Vial of Antivenom Can Cost $14,000,” the cost of making the antivenom–that is, research, development, animal care, and plasma harvesting–amounted to only 0.1 percent of the total price. Fees and costs for licensing, regulation, and hospital profits were 27.7% of the overall cost. Clinical trials were 2.1%. The rest, 70.1%, was for hospital markups used in negotiations with insurance companies.

In other words, the cost of treatment depends on how many vials you need (the usual dosage is four to six vials), where you live, and the hospital you go to. Unfortunately, when you’re in that situation, you don’t want to shop around.

The cost of my antivenom

Altogether, my antivenom dosage and overnight stay at LMH Health cost a whopping $87,575. But here’s the crazy thing about Medicare: Medicare allowed just $6,799.74 of that bill, paid only $5,123.74, and listed a deductible of $1,676, which was paid by my supplemental insurance.

In other words, I paid nothing out of pocket. What wasn’t paid from the total of my bill–$80,775–must have been the hospital’s markup used in negotiation with Medicare.

But the shocker came when I called LMH to ask about the specifics of my care. My four vials of CroFab totaled $79,822, which accounted for more than 90% of my bill. Holy cow.

But what if I had been too young for Medicare? What if I used to have Obamacare as a self-employed freelance writer but now could no longer afford the premiums?

LMH told me that if I hadn’t had insurance, my hospital stay would have been discounted 75%, bringing it down to less than $22,000. Still, that’s a lot of money. While hospitals do take on patients as charity cases, my only options might have been to set up a GoFundMe profile, sell the house, or use retirement savings and hope to die earlier than my father and grandmothers, who died in their 90s, or my two aunts who lived well into their 100s.

No wonder some people refuse treatment. I read about a man in Missouri who died from two cottonmouth bites, one in each leg, while wading in a river. He didn’t seek medical treatment and died the next day. Yet his death couldn’t be attributed solely to envenomation, because a toxicology report stated he also had a lethal dose of oxycodone in his system as well as being legally intoxicated. Can you blame him?

Venomous snakebite stories

Once you’ve been bitten, everyone wants to tell you their own snake story, usually one that happened to someone else. Right away, while I was still recovering in the emergency section of the hospital, a man told me about an uncle who was reaching into a putting hole at a golf course when he got the whammy; he almost died. I heard about venomous snakes who found their victims in an RV and an unfinished basement. There was the rock climber who placed his hand on the far side of a rock and the seventh-grader who spent a week in the hospital. LMH treated fewer than 10 snakebite patients with antivenom in 2025, but every single one of those patients has a story.

But I’m still going camping

Exhausted, I finally returned home and slept 12 hours. Then I returned to my campsite to finish out the week. What’s the worst that could happen? Truth be told, I’d always been more worried about tick bites.

For why I love camping, read my blog Rocky Mountain High, now even more poignant since my father left this earth a couple of years ago. After our Colorado trip, Dad and I camped together every summer at area lakes.