Good Samaritan gives CPR to dying man, receives $8,000 hospital bill [View All]

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Woman tries to save dying man, but gets stuck with bills
After county won't test victim's blood for viruses, good samaritan left wondering if she was infected
By Isadora Vail
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, July 09, 2007

When Wendy Lee saw a man get hit by a truck that night in May, she had no second thoughts about what she should do. Lee stopped her Suburban to help 64-year-old Juan Vega, who had been trying to cross Williamson County Road 172 near La Frontera in Round Rock when he was struck by a 2000 Chevrolet pickup. Lee said she could see Vega's cowboy boots lying in the road. "I called 911 as I was walking up to him, and they walked me through the first steps of CPR and chest compressions," Lee said. Vega's eyes were open and moving, and he was gasping for air as she put her lips to his and breathed. The next moment, she was spitting his blood into the grass.

Vega died on the way to Brackenridge Hospital in Austin. When emergency workers saw that Lee, 38, was covered in Vega's blood, they sent her to the hospital to be tested for HIV and hepatitis. The tests came back negative, but because Williamson County didn't test Vega for those diseases at the scene, Lee is left wondering whether she was exposed to viruses that might affect her health later. Doctors say that six to eight weeks after exposure is the most important time to test for HIV and hepatitis because both viruses take time to show up, but Lee said she cannot afford to get retested. And more than a month later, she's stuck with almost $3,000 in medical bills.

"When I opened that bill, I wanted to cry," said Lee, a single mother of two teenagers who is a human resource manager at Triple Crown Dog Academy in Hutto. "I kept thinking to myself, 'Didn't I do the right thing?' " Eric Strelnieks, a staff physician at St. David's Round Rock Medical Center, where Lee was taken after she tried to help Vega, said she was given a shot to prevent hepatitis B, a virus that attacks the liver, and was prescribed medication that slows the development of HIV. Lee said she stopped taking the medication after a few weeks because it made her nauseated and dizzy. Lee's health insurance paid a portion of her hospital bill, which was just under $8,000. But she said she can't afford to pay the remainder. "The way life is right now, $50 is too much to pay," she said.

Testing Vega's blood for diseases could have put the questions to rest, but Williamson County doesn't require such tests unless it is suspected that alcohol or drugs were involved in a fatal accident, said Steve Benton, the justice of the peace who was called to the May 15 wreck. The driver, an 18-year-old Round Rock man, was not charged. "I sympathize with (Lee), but if we did a toxicology and blood test every time a fatality occurred, then it would cost the county $2,000 for each test," Benton said... According to hospital officials in Round Rock and Austin, emergency technicians and first responders who are exposed to patients' blood receive the same testing and medication that Lee received, but their employers' insurance covers the cost. Lee said she helped Vega because she and others had failed to help the victim of a car accident in front of her Round Rock home this year. She said she later learned that the man lying in the middle of the road had died, and she vowed to help the next person in need. "I could never regret what I did (for Vega) because I know it was right," she said. "I just wish someone could tell me what to do."

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/news/stories/local/07/09/0709samaritan.html