Earache may have any number of causes but spiders are not usually one of them. For a woman in south Wales, however, it turned out to be the case.
Victoria Price, 42, from Porthcawl, had been suffering from pain in her ear and asked her husband Huw to take a look. To his surprise he found a live creature lurking in the canal.
The discovery prompted her go to the Princess of Wales hospital in Bridgend, where she was treated by nurse practitioner Sarah Gaze.
“I saw the triage nurse and told her: ‘There’s something alive in there, apparently. I thought it was an infection, but my husband says he can see something alive’,” Price said.
“She took the cotton wool out, shone in the light and said ‘Okay’ and then went off to find someone who would take it out.”
Gaze said that removing the spider from the patient’s inner ear was a very straightforward task.
“It was alive and very wriggly ... it must have been twice as big as it first looked,” she said. “Victoria was very brave, braver than me. I didn’t find it a pleasant experience at all but it was my job so I had to overcome my fear.”
Price, an IT trainer with South Wales police, is a member of Newton lifeguard club and swims in the sea several time a week. She thought the spider may have been in her hoody as she was getting changed in the beach hut one evening and took shelter in her ear when she got home.
“When I went into the shower the first thing it wanted to do is find somewhere warm and dry, so it went into my ear,” Price explained. “I think the pain must have been him dancing on my eardrum.”
The intruder did not appear to have caused any lasting damage. Neither did it lay any eggs, as Price said she had been repeatedly asked.
