When I lived in Austin, a raccoon snuck into my house via the cat door along with two of her kits one night. After giving my cat the fright of his life, she jumped on me from her perch hanging from a corner of my ceiling (!) and scratched me. Insurance company initially didn't want to cover my 10 minute hospital visit and rabbies shots and sent me a bill for around 35k. Then, magically, they decided they would cover it.

I was a grad student at that time making 18k per year - in retrospect, that bill could have truly messed up my life, and it all hinged on the whims of some anonymous insurance company employee. And that raccoon's poor decision-making, I guess.

To a first approximation nobody gets bit by rattlesnakes, while one in twenty Americans will eventually need an appendectomy.

From the link provided, only 5 people die.

> "It has been estimated that 7,000–8,000 people per year receive venomous bites in the United States, and about 5 of those people die."

For a more accurate comparison, you would compare this with the number of injuries and deaths from firearms.

> "In 2013, there were 73,505 nonfatal firearm injuries (23.2 injuries per 100,000 U.S. citizens), and 33,636 deaths due to "injury by firearms" (10.6 deaths per 100,000 U.S. citizens)."

Preferably these would be broken down to separate handgun injuries to be a closer comparison to the stat you provided, but the point stands to illustrate that the comparison you provided muddies more than enlightens.

To bring up statistics like this just muddies the issue, particularly with a hot-button topic like firearm violence. There's a lot more goes into a nuanced discussion than throwing out stats like this.

> From the link provided, only 5 people die.

How many would have died if they weren't treated? Like, to a first approximation, nobody dies of measles any more, but you're not going to see me saying that that means that we don't need to vaccinate against it.

It's a legitimate question, but again, it's only useful if you're going to make the same comparison with handguns: how many more people would have died without medical attention? Are we comparing the lethality of the injury? The incidence of occurrence? The effectiveness of medical care? These are meaningful and important questions.

The numbers alone, without a meaningful comparison with what they mean in their relative context only clouds the picture.

That's fair. It's certainly the case that none of the numbers people have been providing are useful because you can't disentangle causes well enough to use them to support any particular position.

" From the link provided, only 5 people die."

Only? Hospitals are increasingly not stocking anti-venom because it expires and it's expensive to replace.

"For a more accurate comparison, you would compare this with the number of injuries and deaths from firearms."

I was explicit in using the term handguns and deaths to avoid ambiguity.

"a hot-button topic like firearm violence."

I did it on purpose. Not many bad events occurring at 6000/320e6 are ever universally present in and shape our American psyche like handgun deaths.

"There's a lot more goes into a nuanced discussion than throwing out stats like this."

Specifically, snake bites aren't rare. Neither are handgun homicides. Or maybe they are both rare. They're both a two in a hundred thousand event.

That's 2-3 orders of magnitude fewer than appendectomies, and an order of magnitude fewer than handgun injuries. 7000 rattlesnake bites is 0.002% of the population.

Sure and appendectomies are very expensive. But why do you dismiss the OPs concern for the outrageous cost of anti-venom?

Perhaps because the cost of something as rare, expensive to produce and perishable as anti-venom is sort of justified, whereas a relatively routine operation like and appendectomy is not?

Ok, that's fine. But it still stands that snake bites cost 150K and that's a lot of money!

> While trying to take a selfie with some rattlers, Fassler got bit.

If they had only put "cost of anti-venom 150kU$S" this wouldn't have happened. I say its only a problem of price transparency!

The number of truly innocent people bitten by venomous snakes in the United States is essentially 0.

99% of them were doing something incredibly stupid and got what was coming to them.

Edit: Why are people downvoting this? Anyone who grew up in an area with snakes should know this is 100% fact. The truth is that there's essentially 0 venomous snake bite danger in the United States whether you're being an idiot or not. You can reduce that even further by simply not being an idiot.

In the past year I had one rattle at me on a hiking trail, and almost walked into one on a paved path that hundreds of people walk on... You're quite wrong.

Did you think you were in danger when it rattled?

For a second yeah, i think that's what's supposed to happen.. It rattles, I get scared, I avoid it. nature in action. They're hard to see though. But, if you're in an area with them, it's very possible to be bitten. Definitely rare, but possible.

Were you actually bit? How many bites happen on that paved path per year? The answer is likely very close to 0 no matter how many people walk there.

Fewer than 8,000 venomous snake bites are reported annually:

http://ufwildlife.ifas.ufl.edu/venomous_snake_faqs.shtml

Because you are blaming the victim. The cost of rattlesnake antivenom is not 150k. So being able to charge that means something is broken in the chain of supply.

If you're drunk driving and god-willing kill only yourself, who would argue that it's not OK to say, "Bad decision for drunk driving."

Just because someone was injured or killed does not mean they are a victim.

People who have a driver's license go through tests and a training program, where they teach the dangers of intoxicated driving.

Most people have not had any such training with regards to hikes and rattlesnakes.

Everyone is going to have a personal list of "really stupid things" others do. You'll find little consensus on these lists, which means they may not be all that stupid.

Most people have not had any such training with regards to lifting the lid on the toilet seat before they take a piss. Yet somehow they figure it out.

You don’t need training to know to not get next to a rattlesnake to take a selfie. They come with their own built in warning—- a loud rattle!

Being bitten by a snake is in no way comparable to drunk driving.

Taking a selfie with one is pretty stupid.

I wish I got paid 150k everytime someone did something stupid.