Spiders (not horsey)

[claribella]

So I got a call off hubby Yesterday saying he had been taken to hospital because he had been bitten by a venomous spider. Now I might be naive but I didn't know spiders in the uk could bite and the fact that he is a teacher and works in a classroom each and every day makes the whole thing a bit surreal! He said there was a spider in the room and the kids were making a fuss so he picked it up to throw it out and it bit and died straight away. He had a full check at the hospital and got ECG and a tetanus and was sent home to rest.

He was looking into the actual spider that bit him and it's called a false widow, a member of the black widow family who came over from the canaries in a box of bananas. Apparently they are making their way through the country so be aware. They have been known to cause heart attacks and one lady was bitten in her sleep and almost had to have h arm amputated.

I have an irrational fear of spiders to the point where I can't even look at pictures but it appears that my fear is not so irrational!

 

[MagicMelon]

Oh wow, ouch! You've just terrified me now too. At least I can back up my fear of spiders now to my family and friends who say its "irrational because there's no biting spiders in the UK"!!

We used to own a villa in Florida which was horrific for venemous spiders. Scariest thing was I would check my bed every night to make sure there were none, yet just in the garage behind my headboard wall we did find a black widow! It was nesting (widow babies - AGH!). We had to call a spider dude out who treated it with huge respect, literally he had a long pole that he used to catch it with. I dont believe black widows tend to kill people as such but I've heard their bite is horrifically painful and can cause a lot of damage. Funny though because it was tiny, yet the MASSIVE dinner plate sized spider that we found on a web on a next door house was perfectly harmless.

 

[ivandenisovich10]

As far as I know we do have false widow spiders living here, and they do give a nasty bite. A friends got bitten by a nasty one in the fruit section of a costo store and was proudly showing off two fang marks! Its made my trips to costo even more traumatic