Spider took 50p-sized chunk out of my leg...
A MAN was left with a gaping hole ‘the size of a 50p piece’ after a false widow spider sunk its fangs into his leg as he slept.
Damian Ellis noticed a small painful spot just above his ankle where the creature bit him in bed, but thought it was merely a midge bite.
But over the next 24 hours, the tiny itchy patch of skin became increasingly painful and inflamed, swelling to the size of a large boil.
Damian, 44, didn’t seek medical help, but applied antiseptic cream to the infected skin and changed bandages regularly until it healed over a week later.
The dad-of-two, from Droylsden, Tameside, said: “One of my friends looked at it the next day and said it was a spider bite – I just laughed it off. But it got more and more inflamed and I had a constant burning feeling in my leg.
“It was just like when you have a very painful blister, you knock the top off it and the air first hits it.
“I Googled my symptoms and saw pictures of false widow spider bites and the redness. It looked exactly like my leg.”
After spotting two small, but distinct, puncture wounds and researching it online Damian decided to keep the wound clean and covered to encourage it to heal quickly. Damian, who owns a hydraulic hose business, said: “At first I thought it was a midge bite although it soon started to feel quite sore. It must have been in the early hours of the morning while I was in bed that I was bitten as I was fine before I went to bed at 11.30pm.
“The next day it started to become inflamed and there was a red mark which started to travel up my leg. A few days into me self-treating it the bite became the size of a 50p piece and round the edges it looked like the infection was eating my flesh as the hole got deeper and deeper.
“At that stage I did worry a little bit and start to wonder whether I should go to the doctors as it looked properly infected, but the antiseptic cream started to work and it began to heal over. Two months on it’s left a scar on my leg.”
Like almost all spiders, the false widow is venomous, but its bite is almost exclusively of mild effect on humans