ANTIOCH, Calif. -- A newborn baby was rushed to the emergency room with severe burns, but there was no burn unit, nor any ambulances available.
A California family tried to drive, but the doctor wouldn't let them. Instead, they were forced to take a $90,000 air ambulance for a 15-minute ride to the nearest hospital.
"So we took him to the ER," said Antioch, California resident Jessica Farwell, as she teared up. "Sorry, it's so hard to talk about. Just seeing your baby in so much pain was just like the worst feeling as a mom."
Farwell described the frantic moments from October 2022: a rice cooker fell off her kitchen counter, severely burning her 6-month-old son, Brody.
"His skin, it just instantly bubbled up," she said. "I was just like -- is his face going to start bubbling?"
Panicked, Farwell rushed Brody to a nearby hospital.
"They gave him fentanyl through his nose because he was screaming, and they said they didn't have a burn unit," Farewell said. "So they were calling an ambulance, but it was the end of COVID. There wasn't going to be an ambulance for seven hours."
She says doctors deemed it medically necessary to transfer Brody to Shriners Children's Hospital in Sacramento. Instead of waiting seven hours for an ambulance, Farwell asked if she could drive.
The drive would have taken roughly one hour and 20 minutes, but doctors refused that option after giving her son fentanyl to help with the pain.
"They said, 'No, sorry, you can't -- I can't let you leave with him. I've already called the helicopter.' He basically told me there was nothing I could do," Farwell recounted.
Farwell says the only option they gave her was a 15-minute helicopter ride that cost nearly $90,000. She says doctors assured her she wouldn't get the bill because the hospital was requesting it and she had insurance.
"I was just absolutely terrified to fly -- I'm breaking down. He's screaming; it was just awful," she said.
Upon arriving on the helipad, she fell into another trap: a required ambulance ride to get to the hospital entrance, which was only 0.3 miles away.
"You can see the hospital. You literally can walk across the street to the hospital quicker than that ambulance, and they charged me $10,200," Farwell said.
"I understand ambulances are high-tech machinery. They are staffed by medical personnel who have specialized degrees. But at the end of the day, a 0.3-mile drive should never cost a patient $10,000," said Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, a consumer advocacy group.
Brody's second-degree burns were treated, and he was discharged the next day.
But a couple months later, more trauma came in the mail: bills amounting to more than $100,000 for the 15-minute helicopter ride and the 0.3-mile ambulance ride.
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"I couldn't believe my eyes," Farwell said. "You look at the bills, and it's absolutely enraging. We got hit for a $600 waiting fee; there's a fee for it being a nighttime service. There's just every single fee you can think of."
Despite what she says doctors promised her, Farwell's insurance only covered less than half of the helicopter bill, leaving her on the hook for $57,929.80. On top of that, they only covered a fraction of the ambulance bill, leaving her responsible for another $7,327.
All of this unfolded shortly after she left her job to help care for her children.
"I've called the hospital, ambulance company, my insurance numerous times," she said. "It's been three years, and then they wouldn't listen to me or talk to me. They just kept giving me the runaround."
Then came constant calls from collection companies.
"So I was Googling, 'what do I do? Who can help?'" Farwell said. "Investigative reporters and ABC's 7 On Your Side came up!"
That's when she called ABC San Francisco affiliate KGO.
Their team reached out to all the parties involved -- and got both bills amounting to $100,032 waived.
"They called, and said, 'it's done, we will never bill you again.' They almost sounded apologetic. I hung up and told my husband. We just couldn't believe it!" Farwell said. "All it took was filling out a form on your guys' website. It's a miracle!"
For three years, Farwell thought these exorbitant bills would lead to lawsuits, or even a lien on her house -- she was scared she'd lose everything.
"It just blows my mind; I've been working on this for three years, and did not chip away at it. And within a couple of days you had people within the insurance company and the hospital actually trying to help!" Farwell said. "I have laid my heart out to these people for three years but then you guys get involved and they're scrambling; they're absolutely scrambling."
California has since passed a law, AB 716, that protects consumers from surprise billing for ground ambulance services. For example, insured patients are protected from surprise bills when using out-of-network ambulances, and uninsured patients receive discounted rates for ground ambulance services.
"We now have a right in California to pay only in-network charges for emergency services, whether that emergency is in the hospital, when you get an anesthesiologist who might be out-of-network or if that emergency is an ambulance or even an air ambulance that you're required to take when you have no other option," said Balber of Consumer Watchdog.
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But Farwell's $10,000 ambulance bill did not get waived initially, in part because the transport took place in 2022 -- predating when that law went into effect in January of last year.
In response to KGO's inquiries, ambulance company Pro Transport-1 offered the following statement: "While we feel this issue still 100% lies with the insurance company simply deciding to pass part of the bill to the patient, we will accept their partial payment and no longer seek the remaining balance of the bill for our services."
Legal experts say it's not uncommon for the ambulance company to point fingers at the insurance company, and vice versa. It happened in this case.
KGO repeatedly reached out to Blue Cross Blue Shield for further comment.
The company was unable to answer questions and instead provided the following statement: "We don't comment publicly on specific member issues. We are committed to increasing access to safe, appropriate, and effective health care based on the best available information and research, and in accordance with a member's benefit plan," said John Simley, communications director for Blue Cross Blue Shield covering Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma, and Texas.
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