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Double-click on buttons below to navigate through the website:
TO MAKE A CONTRIBUTION TO ELLY'S MEDICAL BILLS FUND,
CHECKS CAN BE MADE PAYABLE TO:
ELLY BACHMAN SNAKEBITE FUND
Regions Bank
146 Sea Island Parkway
Beaufort, SC 29907
OR BY CREDIT OR DEBIT CARD USING PAYPAL BY CLICKING HERE:
*if paying by PAYPAL (via the donate button), you acknowledge
that PAYPAL deducts a portion of your donation (approx. 3%) in fees
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This is Elly. |
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Elly is 3 years old and loves cupcakes!
On May 28, 2007, when Elly was still 2 years old, she
went for a walk with her family on the golf course behind her house.
She and her sister were playing when Elly felt pain in her foot. She
did not know it at the time, but she had been bitten by a snake!
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courtesy of Mark & Lisa Kostich
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Elly was taken to the
Emergency Room at Beaufort Memorial Hospital and given antivenin. She was then flown by helicopter to the Medical University of
South Carolina in Charleston, where she would spend the next 8 days.
The
venom that was injected by the snake affected her circulatory system.
Usual symptoms from a Copperhead snake (like the one that bit Elly)
include intense pain, swelling, and death of tissue cells at the location
of the bite. Possible other
effects are hemorrhaging, internal organ breakdown, and destruction of
blood cells.
In
Elly's case, her leg swelled so much that it was necessary to open her leg
surgically to relieve the swelling. If the doctors did not perform
surgery, her leg would have burst open on its own; and she would have most
likely lost her leg, if not her life.
Elly
had three operations while at MUSC. The first was to open her leg
and the second and third were to close the wounds.
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| Beaufort
Gazette coverage
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Today Elly is doing great!
She can use her leg just like before the snakebite, and her scars
look a lot better than they did in June.
The only thing that we need to be careful about is sunburn.
Elly
remembers everything about her experience and talks about it freely.
She does not have any apparent fear of snakes…only of getting
shots at the doctor or hospital! We
are very fortunate
and grateful that Elly is in great physical shape.
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