He picked up
the rattlesnake
for the photo.
In July 2015, Todd Fassler of San Diego, California, encountered a Western Diamondback rattlesnake and decided to pick it up to take a selfie. The snake bit him on the hand. UC San Diego Health administered 26 vials of antivenom — one of the largest treatments the hospital had recorded. His bill came to approximately $153,161. The San Diego Union-Tribune confirmed his name. He survived.
Western Diamondback. Not a prop.
The Western Diamondback rattlesnake (Crotalus atrox) is one of the largest rattlesnake species in North America, typically reaching four to five feet in length, with recorded specimens exceeding seven feet. It is responsible for the greatest number of snakebite fatalities in the United States. Its venom is hemotoxic — it destroys red blood cells and tissue, causes internal bleeding, and in sufficient doses is fatal without treatment.
The species is native to the southwestern United States and Mexico, including San Diego County. It is not endangered. It is not rare. It is found on hiking trails throughout the region and is reliably identified by its distinctive diamond-patterned scales, rattle, and triangular head. It is encountered frequently enough that California Poison Control maintains active protocols for treating its bites. The standard course of antivenom for a typical Diamondback envenomation is six to ten vials.
Fassler’s case required 26.
He knew it was a rattlesnake. He picked it up anyway.
There is no indication that Fassler mistook the snake for something else. The Western Diamondback is one of the most recognizable snakes in the American Southwest — the diamond pattern, the triangular head, the rattle. He picked it up to photograph himself holding it.
California Poison Control receives hundreds of snakebite calls each year. The most common scenario is an accidental step-on or near-miss in tall grass. The “I picked it up for a selfie” category is a documented but statistically uncommon subset of cases. Fassler’s case became the most cited example in that category, largely because of the bill.
The decision to pick up the snake cost him $153,161 — confirmed by the San Diego Union-Tribune and reported nationally by CBS News, ABC News, Time, The Washington Post, and Reuters. The photograph has not been widely published.
$153,161. For one photograph.
The case became a reference point in the American healthcare pricing debate — not because of the snake, but because of what followed. Antivenom pricing in the United States is among the highest in the world for the same drug. CroFab, manufactured by BTG (now Recordati), sells in other countries for a fraction of U.S. list price. The hospital markup applied to each vial at the point of administration inflates the final patient-facing cost further.
Reuters reported on the Fassler case explicitly in the context of U.S. drug pricing. NPR ran a segment titled “How One Rattlesnake Bite Can Bankrupt You” — using his case as the anchor example. The University of California San Diego Health system confirmed the details. The San Diego Union-Tribune named him.
One encounter. One photograph. $153,000.
“The antivenom alone was tens of thousands of dollars. Twenty-six vials. That's not a typo.”
UC San Diego Health — cited in San Diego Union-Tribune · July 2015