One Ibiza holidaymaker felt the impact of a Brown Recluse Spider bite
(Picture: Getty Images/iStockphoto)A British teenager who was bitten by a spider in Ibiza faces amputation of two fingers.
It all began on some steps in the popular holiday resort of San Antonio.
After sitting down to watch the sunset, the 19-year-old first noticed something was wrong when he felt a stinging sensation in his right hand.
Not thinking much of it, the teen continued his night and went to bed but woke up at 5am the next day with a “burning” hand that was “swelling up,” he told island newspaper Diario de Ibiza.
Clearly, something was wrong - and there was.
An injection at a local health centre didn’t improve his hand, and he was taken to Can Misses Hospital in the island capital Ibiza Town as his hand got worse.
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.”
Eventually, his medical problem was diagnosed after a series of battery tests, results showed the teen had been bitten by a poisonous brown recluse spider.
Turns out a bite from this spider can be very serious as it can cause necrosis, which over time can cause gangrene - where a loss of blood supply causes body tissue to die.
In some cases, a bite from a brown recluse spider can even be fatal, if not treated in time.
Following his two-week stay in a Spanish hospital, the teen returned home to Wales where he is currently awaiting amputation surgery for two fingers on his hand.
The teen discussed the unlucky turn of events he said: “Millions of people go to the same place every year to see the sunset and nothing ever happened to them before me.”
The brown recluse spider can be found in Spain and in the central and southern parts of the United States.
It can sometimes be referred to as the violin spider since its head has a darker mark on it that looks like a violin.
But don’t panic - in most cases, a bite from a brown recluse spider does not result in any symptoms.
Though when there are symptoms, a small white blister can appear at the bite site soon after the bite. The tissue may become hard. Lesions are dry, blue-grey or blue-white patches with ragged edges surrounded by redness.
In severe reactions, the bite site can develop a “volcano lesion,” according to Ohio State University. The damaged tissue can be gangrenous and leave an open wound that can be as large as a human hand.
A full recovery can take up to eight weeks or longer, there may be some scarring left too.
