Man: Wal-Mart should pay medical bills after snake bite - does not plan to seek more money

Associated Press ^ | October 1, 2003 | Associated Press Staff

[MeekOneGOP]

Man: Wal-Mart should pay medical bills after snake bite

01:12 PM CDT on Wednesday, October 1, 2003

Associated Press

BROWNWOOD, Texas – A man who claims he was bitten by a rattlesnake in a Wal-Mart says he wants the store to pay his medical bills but does not plan to seek more money.

Douglas Hatchett, 31, a self-employed carpenter and painter who lives in Bangs, went to Wal-Mart in nearby Brownwood on Monday.

He said he reached for a pair of shoes in a box on a shelf when the Western diamondback rattler, estimated at 14-16 inches long, bit him in the hand.

"I didn't know what it was," Hatchett told the Brownwood Bulletin. "I jerked back. When I jerked back, it was coming with me."

He said he stomped twice on the snake, killing it, then found an employee and asked for a snake bite kit.

He said someone from management arrived with the kit and insisted on calling an ambulance. Hatchett said he did not want to go to the hospital but did and was released Monday night.

Firefighters arrived at about 1 p.m. and found a small dead rattlesnake in a box, fire Capt. Larry Butler said.

Wal-Mart corporate officials from Bentonville, Ark., are investigating by talking to ambulance workers and other witnesses and reviewing store security tapes, spokeswoman Sharon Weber said.

Brownwood police initially investigated the incident but are no longer involved because it was determined to be a civil matter, Police Chief Virgil Cowin said.

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Online at: http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dallas/tsw/stories/100103dntexsnakebite.695bd.html

[annyokie]

Sounds like a reasonable man.

[Defiant]

I think Wal-Mart will bite.

[radiohead]

He said he stomped twice on the snake, killing it

I heard this on the radio. When they said the man stomped on the snake and killed it, all I could think of was you Texans must be some stuff!

Now that I see the story in print, is it possible the man planted the snake? : ) Yeah, he says he doesn't want anything from WalMart - for now. Bets on when the story changes?

[Chewbacca]

http://www.arkansasnbc.com/global/story.asp?s=1465048&ClientType=Printable
October 1, 2003 at 11:28AM CDT
Wal-Mart Rattlesnake May Have Been Hoax

Authorities in Texas are trying to determine whether a man actually was bitten by a rattlesnake in a Wal-Mart, as he claimed.

When firefighters arrived Tuesday afternoon at a Brownwood, Texas store, they found a small dead Western Diamondback rattler in a box.

Fire officials say a man told firefighters he reached for a pair of shoes in the shoe department when the snake bit his hand.

Officials say the man told them he stomped the snake to death, then walked to the sporting goods section and told an employee he had been bitten.

A store official says police told her it didn't look like a freshly killed snake.

3:10PM CDT UPDATE: Man Says Wal-Mart Should Pay Medical Bills

[billhilly]

Potted plants from tropical climates frequently have snakes in them. I'm guessing Wal-Mart or Humpty Dumpty's could have one too.

Two days ago I was pulling ivy vines that were growing up my house and behind the main electrical box, about eye level, and a snake came out from behind the electrical box.

[Chancellor Palpatine]

Typical. They've got a good out for cheap, and are jerking around on whether to pay the guy's medical bills.

Eventually, he'll get pissed off, will sue and get a sizeable number dollars, and the jury award will be trumpeted by the insurance industry as yet another example of "an out of control jury system".

[BOBTHENAILER]

Don't email this thread link to John Edwards.

[cksharks]

Would you just pay me if I accused you of hitting me? Inquiring minds and all that.

[Terry Mross]

Last week our lawn guy was pulling up old flowers from in front of our house here in Houston. He rang the door bell. I came out and he showed me the two foot long rattle snake he'd found in the flower bed.

Last year the cable guy was leaving around 11 p.m. and a four foot long cotton mouth was in the front yard. (There's a ditch beside my house.) I herded it back into the ditch. A month later my daughter's boy friend got of his car in front of the house and stepped over a baby rattle snake. I killed that one.

Now the kicker. About four months ago I was washing my windows while wearing a pair of flip flops. I felt a sting on my ankle. I thought it was a fire ant. After about 30 seconds I looked down to find the ant bed. There was none. It kept stinging so I went inside and looked and saw two little pin pricks on my ankle. I had been bitten. Luckily it didn't release any venom.

[TrappedInLiberalHell]

The sad thing is that some people on another forum (not a nominally liberal one, at that) think the guy was being sadistic and macho when he killed the snake. Unbelievable. First of all, it's instinctual to try to kill that which tries to kill you, and second, he may have prevented the snake from escaping into the store and hurting a child. OK, so maybe the second is remote, but rattlesnakes are VENOMOUS, and are certainly sometimes deadly.

It's a good thing it wasn't President Bush who did this. Then again, it wouldn't change anyone's opinion of him, just make the haters hate him even more.

[Still Thinking]

I think Wal-Mart already bites!

[zygoat]

I used to work on the intercoastal canal, usually on the Baton Rouge -Galveston/Houston sea lanes route. I truly loved the look of the region.But the snakes! Cottonmouths, rattlers, and even alligators were a little much for me.Even the friggin' insects were intimadating.I remember shooting a bug one morning because it was bigger than my shoe, and it needed to be dispatched.

[Sabatier]

He would have planted the snake and faked the bite how? Doesn't seem likely.

[radiohead]

Wal-Mart Rattlesnake May Have Been Hoax

i knew it smelled funny...

When I was practicing law, a colleague had a client who wanted to sue a shoe company. He had pictures of the skin rubbed off of the tops of his feet and claimed that the shoes didn't fit right.

I told my friend not to take the case. Obviously, the man could have mitigated his damage by taking off the stupid shoes (assuming he wasn't lying about how his feet were injured). But, my friend took the case anyway (new lawyer needs income kinda thing). Thankfully, it didn't go anywhere w/the insurance company. They weren't even willing to pay a nuisance settlement.

I do like the rattlesnake tho. Nice scam if you can make it work.

[Mamzelle]

Or it could be something cooked up to defraud. Remember that movie where this guy planted roaches in yoghurt... What's this business about a "kit", anyway? Rattlesnake antivenom is hard to come by, even for hospitals.

Once WalMart agrees to pay a bill, that'll be evidence that they're admitting fault. Just like when you improve a product, it's can be admissed in civil court as a confession that the previous product was unsafe.

[Mamzelle]

Snake bites usually are worse than hornet stings, but not by much. ...Unless you get an infection, or have an allergy, or the bite happens to be exactly on an important blood vessel on your neck (leading directly to brain)-- not to mention, many bites are "dry"--

Would druther be bit by a copperhead than a brown recluse. Copperhead bites are hardly ever venemous.