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Local woman recovering after venomous snake bite

Following months of therapy, her hospital bill amounted to more than $100,000. Begging the question, how much does anti-venom cost?

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- As the temperatures continue to go up, so do snake sightings and potentially the money leaving your wallet.

Snake repellent like Snake Away, Dr. T's Snake-A-Way and Ortho Snake B Gon are becoming one of the more popular purchases this spring.

A local woman was bitten by a copperhead in the front yard of her mother's house.

"It's a quick sting but after that, it's excruciating pain," said Katryna Ritter, a north Charlotte resident.

Snakes might be click-bait on social media but in the real world, they aren't getting too many likes.

"Aching, stinging, burning, throbbing," Ritter said. "Everything all at once at the same time."

For Katryna Ritter, this past Mother's Day 2018 was special but for the wrong reasons.

"I was loading them up in there then I just step back and it just something bit me," Ritter said. "I wasn't really sure then all of the sudden I realized it's a snake."

She had the bite marks and swelling to prove it. However, Katryna isn't the only person to survive a snake attack and she certainly won't be the last.

A local woman commented on Facebook about a snake bite. She said she had to get a dozen doses of anti-venom after a copperhead attacked her.

Following months of therapy, her hospital bill amounted to more than $100,000. Begging the question, how much does anti-venom cost?

NBC Charlotte paid a visit to poison control to find out.

"Anti-venom is very expensive," said Dr. Michael Beuhler, the Director of Carolina Poison Control in Charlotte. "A rough estimate would probably be around $5,000 a vile. So that individual probably got over $60,000 worth of anti-venom."

As for Katryna, she only got one dose of the anti-venom.

"I'm sure some woman will be like you haven't had a child yet so you don't really know what that's like, but that was the worst pain in my life," Ritter said.

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