The boy spent 57 days in the hospital and racked up $811,929 in medical bills

Unvaccinated Boy, 6, Nearly Dies of Tetanus but Parents Still Refuse to Get Him Vaccinated

AURORA, CO - February 10: The annual flu vaccine is drawn from the vile into the needle Saturday, February 7, 2015 at Crawford Kids Clinic in Aurora, Colorado. Luz Barajas and Carlos Cholcio brought their children, Carlos and Menserrat into the clinic for their annual flu shot. (Photo By Brent Lewis/The Denver Post via Getty Images)

There is no scientific link between vaccines and autism, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

A 6-year-old, unvaccinated boy in Oregon nearly died of tetanus, requiring a 57-day stay in the hospital that led to $811,929 in hospital bills.

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The boy, profiled in a case study published by the Centers for Disease Control, had cut his head while playing on his family’s farm. His parents cleaned the wound and stitched it up, but six days later he developed severe symptoms — his jaw was clenching and his neck and back were arched, all signs of opisthotonus, muscle spasms that are indicators of tetanus.

He was airlifted to a pediatric hospital where doctors confirmed that he had tetanus, the state’s first case in over 30 years. The disease has been largely eradicated thanks to vaccines.

When he arrived at the hospital, the boy was awake but could not open his mouth, had trouble breathing and had continued spasms. The doctors gave him an anti-tetanus immunoglobulin to treat the wound and the first round of the DTaP vaccine, which protects against diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis.

They also put him in a dark room with ear plugs, because noise could increase his spasms, and fully cleaned his wound.

But over the next few days his condition worsened. He developed high blood pressure, a soaring fever and a rapid heart rate, and had to be put on a ventilator. He stayed in the intensive care unit for 47 days, and was released to a rehabilitation center after another ten days in the hospital.

“I honestly never thought I would see this disease in the United States,” Dr. Judith A. Guzman-Cottrill, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Oregon Health & Science University, who treated the boy and was the lead author of the study, told the New York Times. “It was difficult — for many of us — to see him suffer.”

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A month after his rehab stay — which lasted for 17 days — the boy was able to engage in his old activities, like running and biking.

Throughout his hospital stay, the boy racked up $811,929 in hospital bills. Guzman-Cottrill told the Washington Post that this could have been avoided with the DTaP vaccine.

“The complex and prolonged care led to the high treatment cost,” she said. “In contrast, the cost of one DTaP dose is somewhere around $24-$30 a dose, and this illness could have been prevented with five doses of DTaP vaccine.”

A large study recently confirmed again that there is no connection between vaccines and autism.