A California man had an unwelcome visitor in his bed during a stay at a luxury Las Vegas hotel.
“I woke up with sharp pain in my private area,” Michael Farchi, 61, told Los Angeles ABC affiliate KABC. “Didn’t know what it was. I reached my hand to see what was happening under the covers and got another sharp pain.”
Farchi told Vegas CBS affiliate KLAS that it felt like somebody stabbing him with a “piece of glass or knife.” He ran to the bathroom and undressed to see an orange scorpion hanging on to his Reebok boxers. Farchi said the not-very-nice scorpion stung him at least three or four times.
It happened at The Venetian on Dec. 26. Now Farchi is planning to filing a lawsuit against the hotel.
“Nobody staying in Vegas needs to exposed to deadly scorpions while they’re sleeping, let alone on their private parts, their testicles,” said his attorney, Brian Virag, who is known for suing hotel and apartment complex owners with bedbug infestations, in an interview with KABC.
Virag said in an interview with The Daily Beast that hotel staffers “were very dismissive and unapologetic,” though they comped the room for the night. Farchi and his family checked out of the hotel the next day.
Virag told Law&Crime he will file the lawsuit soon. Meanwhile, he said Farchi is still traumatized and experiencing symptoms months after the fact.
According to the Mayo Clinic, “scorpion stings are painful but rarely life-threatening.” Bark scorpions, typically between 1.6 to 3 inches, can cause pain, tingling and numbness at the sting site, the Seattle Children’s Hospital reports.
The hotel released the following statement to media outlets: “The resort has protocols for all incidents and we can confirm they were followed in this incident.”
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