‘I FOUGHT FOR LIFE AFTER SPIDER BITE’
Student on caravan hol.. in Wales
A STUDENT was left fighting for her life in hospital after a huge venomous spider bit her while she slept on holiday.
Abby Tannetta, 18, was at her parents’ caravan with a pal to celebrate finishing college when she was attacked.
She woke in agony, with a pain under her arm, and spotted a massive spider – thought to be a false widow – in her bed.
Abby said: “I woke up with a sharp pain, looked next to me and I just saw this giant spider running away from the bed.
“It was really sore and just got worse. It got bigger, it was very red, itchy and so sore I couldn’t move my arm or sleep on the side.
“I was feeling really dizzy and weak, I was boiling, and I felt like my heart was racing and the lump had grown to the size of a golf ball. I collapsed as the doctors were rushing me into surgery but they managed to do it otherwise I could have got sepsis, which you can die from. “I couldn’t breathe so I had an oxygen mask and I heard the doctors saying: ‘Oh my God, she’s really in a bad way’ as they rushed me in.”
Abby, from Caerphilly, South Wales, had general anaesthetic while doctors drained the infected area. She said: “I was already really scared of spiders but now I’m too scared to even go back to the caravan and the sight of any tiny spider makes me feel sick.” Her encounter at Cardigan Bay Holiday Park came just days after the British Arachnological Society reported a “huge increase” in sightings of all species.