Dad loses his leg after being bitten by false widow spider
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A FATHER of two has spoken of his horror after he was bitten by a false widow spider and three years later had to have his leg amputated.
Andy Perry, 46, is believed to be the first to lose a leg from a spider attack in Britain when he almost died after the insect bit his ankle.
The landscaper fell ill with severe back pain 48 hours after a fencing job in Thorpe Astley, Leics, in 2015.
Andy was rushed to hospital with sepsis and kidney failure and placed on a drip. Over the next few weeks the infection subsided but he was left with lymphedema – a swelling of the leg, making his skin fall off. The pain got so bad that he even considered chopping off his own leg with a chainsaw.
He eventually had an amputation above the right knee and is now in a wheelchair, unable to work or play with his sons Thomas, eight, and George, five.
Andy, of Huncote, Leics, who lives with policewoman wife Christine, 39, said: “Within a couple of hours I started feeling really poorly. Next I got a massive ache in the small of my back. I went to bed, and was throwing up.” Two days later he was rushed to hospital.
He said: “A doctor at the Royal Leicester Infirmary said the ache in my back was the kidney’s packing up. I was put on an antibiotic drip and almost died.”
A doctor saw two marks from the bite on Andy’s ankle and said they were probably caused by a false widow, Britain’s most venomous spider.
“The puncture marks were just above the sock line because I used to wear socks and boots,” said Andy.
“Apparently the bite feels like a bee sting but I didn’t feel a thing.
“The leg swelled to the point where the skin split and fell off. It was all just a mass of open, weeping sores and blisters.
“The leg was all but useless but there wasn’t a surgeon nearby who wanted to touch it because it was a live infection.”
The landscape gardener wanted to get the leg cut off so that he could get back to work.
He added: “I even had to threaten my GP with cutting my own leg off with a chainsaw because I was so desperate.”
Andy went to visit a surgeon in Coventry who, as soon as he saw the leg, immediately said he was willing to do the amputation.
The leg was cut off on March 13 this year and should have healed by now but Andy got a secondary infection and so was back in surgery on April 27.
Andy added: “I’ve now got a vacuum dressing which pulls all the gunge out of the leg and takes it away. The plan is to rehabilitate the leg, get a prosthetic and get back to work for this year or next.” The UK has seen a rise in false widow spiders in the past four years, believed to be caused by a warmer climate, and a number of people have been hospitalised by them.
Its bite is not normally fatal, but its Antipodean cousin the black widow can kill within hours.
The black widow has black and red markings across its body.
The false widow is native to Madeira and the Canary Islands, and is believed to have arrived in Britain on a cargo transporter in the 19th century.