A British teenager will need at least two fingers amputated after being bit by a spider while on holiday in Ibiza.
The 19-year-old is awaiting surgery after returning home to Wales. He spent the last two weeks in Spain undergoing medical tests to determine why his right hand was swelling, the Mirror reports.
The holidaymaker's nightmare was published in local papers today (August 9).
The teen was bitten while watching the sunset in what is understood to be San Antontio, he told the paper : "I sat on some steps and felt something and stung me but I didn’t think anything of it.
“I woke up at 5am the following morning because my hand was burning and was swelling up.”
He went to a local health centre where he was given an injection, but when that didn't help he was taken to Can Misses Hospital.
He added: "I began to panic because my hands were turning more and more purple and the doctors told me they had never seen anything like it.”
Medics then put him on a drip and performed a series of tests that showed he had been bitten by a venomous brown recluse spider.
Their bites require medical attention and if left untreated it can cause necrosis which can lead to gangrene.
The unidentified teen is now facing surgery once his hand has healed to remove two fingers and part of another in Wales.
He said: “Millions of people go to the same place every year to see the sunset and nothing ever happened to them before me.”
In June, a student was left fighting for her life in hospital after a venomous spider bit her while she slept on holiday and left her with a huge lump on her arm.
Abby Tannnetta, 18, who had been staying at her parents’ caravan in Cardigan Bay Holiday Park, Pembrokeshire, Wales, said at the time she thought a false widow spider was to blame.
She had to have emergency surgery to avoid sepsis setting in.
The teenager said after recovering: “People always say that spiders won't hurt you, that you're much bigger than them, but this shows they can. You just don't think it will happen to you until it does.”
Brown recluse spider bites can have life-changing consequences as venom breaks down soft tissue and it can take months to heal and leave deep scars.
Over time the wound can grow to as large as 10 inches.
They are frequently exterminated in the lower midwestern US because of increased fear towards the arachnids, which can survive up to 10 months with no food or water.
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