- Kathryn Patterson
Would You Get Crushed by a Snake Twice?

Bitten by an orcaÂ
Bitten by a shark
Crushed by a nonvenomous snake
Bitten by a squirrel
Burned by water skis that are on fire
Spacecraft explosion injury
Spacecraft fire injury
Unknown spacecraft injury, e.g. a space toilet falling on your head and killing you
Bitten by a pig
Struck by a pig
Poisoning by caffeine, assault
Toxic effect of venom of caterpillars, assault
Seriously, how can a caterpillar assault you?
Several of the new codes come with instance modifiers; for example, "Bitten by an orca" comes in Â
three varieties:
initial encounter,Â
subsequent encounter, andÂ
sequela. Â Â
Therefore, ICD-10 has three codes for bitten by an orca, depending on how many times you've been bitten. Â (This begs the question, who gets bitten by an orca more than once?)
Also, for codes that relate to venom or poisoning, the codes contain modifiers related to cause. Â So for "Poisoning by caffeine" has four codes for:
accidental (unintentional)
intentional, self-harm
assault
undetermined

This past summer, two different men found a rattlesnake and decided to take a selfie with the snake. One, Alex Gomez, picked it up, snapped a shot, then tried to reposition the snake to lay around his neck. Â The rattlesnake, having enough photos for the day, bit the man on his thumb. Â The other man, Todd Fassler, did the same thing, only he got bitten in his arm and needed all the antivenom available from two hospitals to live.
Truly, I don't blame the snake in either case.
But I wonder, in the new ICD-10, are these incidents classified as accidental, intentional, or assault? Â Because no one intented to get bitten, which leans towards accidental. Â But both men definitely picked up a rattlesnake, an intentional action. Â And the snake intentionally bit them - does this count as assault?