Robert’s holiday ended in A&E after gruesome spider bite
Spanish nurse diagnosed golfer’s condition
LINING up a shot from the rough during a Spanish golfing holiday, Robert Gray thought nothing of a mild sting on his leg.
He finished his round and continued to enjoy his break in Benalmadena, on the Costa del Sol.
It was only when he developed a foul-looking blister on his leg – and started to feel increasingly unwell – that he became concerned.
Once he got home to Scotland he went to hospital – where a Spanishborn nurse recognised the wound as being a spider bite.
Father- of- two Robert, 60, never saw what bit him, but by the time he arrived back home, he went to A&E for help.
Robert had felt something on his leg while taking the shot from a rocky area next to the course.
He said: “Over the next couple of days, I got a blister on the bottom of my right leg.
“I was sharing a room with a friend who is a pharmacist. He said it was an unusual blister.
“My jeans were rubbing it and it burst. When I got home, I had sickness and diarrhoea.”
Robert went to Kirkcaldy’s Victoria Hospital where he spoke to a Spanish nurse who works with his wife Lynne.
She told him it looked like he’d been bitten by a spider.
Robert, who’s from Lochgelly, Fife, then saw a doctor who agreed with the diagnosis.
After a course of antibiotics, he was quickly on the mend.
British pest controller Gray Salt, who runs Local Pest exterminators in Marbella and Costa del Sol, said he believes the culprit would have been a brown recluse spider.
He said: “The brown recluse necrotises the flesh and causes a bull’s-eye shaped blister.
“At the time of the bite, you’d maybe feel a mild sting, but the pain increases, as does the damage to the soft tissues.”
Robert isn’t the only Brit to have been bitten by a spider in Spain.
Sue Isaac, 58, fell dangerously unwell after she was bitten by a spider in Albox, Almeria, in 2013.
At the time, she said it felt like she’d been stung by a bee, but then started to feel unwell and developed a bruise on her thigh.
Within days, the bruise doubled in size and blisters developed around it.
Sue was admitted to an intensive care after an infection entered her body via the bite. She needed six months of treatment, including antibiotics, before she could go home.
Entomologist professor Adam Hart said there wasn’t enough information to determine if a spider had caused Robert’s wound.
Robert added: “My friends were calling me Spider-Man.
“The next time I hit a ball into the rough, I think I’ll maybe just drop it.”