savings acct garnished

$900.00 of my $1,000 Bank of America savings acct has been garnished by a collection agency. I did not pay a bill for an emergency room visit when i was uninsured. It has caught me completely off guard that a collection agency could get to my funds like this and that Bank of America would not only allow it, but also charge me an additional $155.00 in lawyer (?) and procesing fees.
I guess i am just posting here to see what my options are..i placed a call to Bank of America but they simply transfered me to the collection agency who were obviously unhelpful.
On the back of garnishment notice sent by the collection agency it reads:
IN ADDITION, WITHIN THIRTY DAYS AFTER THE DATE OF SERVICE OF THE WRIT OF GARNISHMENT ON THE BANK OR OTHER PERSON HOLDING YOUR MONEY OR PROPERTY, YOU MAY ELECT TO EXEMPT A TOTAL OF $6,000.

I'm not sure what that means but my total funds being saved with Bank of America is less than $6,000.

I'm not even sure where I would go to protest this garnishment, or if it would be worth hiring a lawyer to try and get back some of this $900 and pay the bill at my own pace.

I thank you in advace for any thoughts or advice

Was there a court case? Did you fail to appear, or lose, or what happened?

hey, thanks for the reply.
I have not gone to court on this yet. I've only been served with papers from both the collection agency and my bank informing me of the garnishment. Calling the collection agency today offered me no other options other than immediate payment. I don't feel like hiring a lawyer to unfeeze 750.00 would be a financially smart move. I was just hoping there might be some options or rights that I have which i may not be aware of. I know I screwed up on this and will ultimately have to pay this debt. It is just so infuriating to me that a collection agency could have such access to my savings and that Bank of America would cooperate so readily with them (while charging me an extra $155.00 in the process)
I'm not eve sure of what the next step will be. WIll they inform me of where/when a hearing will take place? Maybe I could go down, be honest, and have the garnishment lifted/reduced and pay this off in instalments that are not so crippling to my meager savings. Do I have options I'm not aware of? The capitalized claus in my origina post, does that give me any wiggle room?
thanks for taking the time.

Ask the bank what order required them to freeze. Normally you need to go to court first...check if you defaulted somewhere.