A shocked mum was left with a swollen head and weeping eyes after she woke to find she had been bitten by a 'false widow' spider in bed.
Natalie Pumfrey, 32, said her vision was blurred and the whites of her eyes turned to jelly following her encounter with the arachnid.
Terrified Natalie rushed to hospital with her husband after waking up in agony on August 29.
Natalie, from Basildon, Essex, said: "I felt it on my face and pinched and threw it across the room.
"This is about at 4am. I woke up at 6am with my daughter and I got out of bed. I couldn't see out of my eyes so I wondered if I had conjuctivitis.
"I had huge, glazed eyes with all the white bits looking like jelly."
The mum-of-two was told by a woman at the hospital that it 'could be a false widow spider' bite.
Natalie told how she grabbed the spider in her sleep and later tried to take a picture of it - but there was only half a body and four legs left.
Husband Wayne, 45, cleaned their bedroom and boiled their sheets before Natalie came home from A&E - but she refuses to sleep with windows open, fearing other spiders would crawl in.
She said she was "thankful" the spider did not bite her 10-week old baby in the room.
Their two-year-old child was also asleep in the bedroom.
