Father collapses after UK’s most poisonous spider bites him ten times

I'm sure we're going to get some Austrailians unimpressed with this spider but if you live in the U.K, well down south this may worry you if you was not aware of this spiders presence. The actual incident happened in a Toys R Us store and it's very lucky his Daughter didn't get bitten. i'm unable to upload pictures but there is a few on the wiki source i posted.


The spider is native to the Canary Islands but arrived in England in around 1870 through bananas sent to Torquay.[1] In England it has a reputation as one of the few local spider species which is capable of inflicting a painful bite to humans - although this is a comparatively rare occurrence.


False Widow

Well here's the story

A father has told how the UK’s most dangerous spider bit him ten times while shopping for toys with his daughter. Chris Galton, 31, collapsed after the false widow spider repeatedly bit into his back and neck at the Toys R Us store in Hampshire on Saturday afternoon. The exotic creature is believed to have nestled in his hooded top after dropping from a bush near his home in Southampton. It wasn’t until hours later when he was shopping in the toy store with his wife, Zoe, and his one-year-old daughter, Imogen, that the poison started to take effect. Suddenly feeling unwell, Mr Galton collapsed to the floor. He was rushed to hospital where doctors discovered the ten 50-pence-sized marks on his body. The father-of-one was given painkillers and was released the same day.

Yahoo source

Mirror Source

yeah, they're pretty mean. Obviously nothing compared to other species, but they have a bite which is akin to a bee sting. If you're allergic to their bite, then they can be very dangerous.

I stayed in a place last year, which had a conservatory full of these things. It was carnage, all other spiders which came by, got munched, as did everything else which got in their way. I had to be on guard to make sure my dogs didn't get in their way!

reply to post by Acidtastic


Now there is a creature that should be hunted to extinction. Even the money spiders!

Bloody horrible little things. No decent meat on them though so it won't happen!

Scary!
I think I was fed upon by a large spider while sleeping last summer. I woke up early morning when my alarm went off at 4:45AM, and shortly afterwards went for a shower and a shave. As soon as I stood in front of the mirror I saw dried blood on my right earlobe. After washing it off I could see two tiny puncture marks about 4-5mm apart, although there was no inflammation or pain from it.

So, I reckon there was some pretty large arachnid feeding on me while I slept. Gave me the shudders thinking about it.

I read somewhere that they were just in the south of England, but after a google search, i found out they have spread as far North as Cumbria. Shock Horror*

Lyn Mitchell, 52, spent 26 hours in intensive care after being bitten by a false widow spider at her home in Egremont, west Cumbria. Until recently the purple and black creature, which looks similar to the true black widow, has been found predominantly in the south of England. But global warming, and in particular a succession of mild winters, has enabled it to migrate steadily northwards. Mrs Mitchell, a grandmother, suffered a serious allergic reaction to the bite and within seconds she was gasping for breath and losing consciousness. However, despite her condition she managed to dial 999. An ambulance crew arrived within minutes and took her to the West Cumberland Hospital, Whitehaven. "It happened in the early hours of the morning," she recalled. "I was in a deep sleep but most have rolled over on top of the spider and it bit me. "I jumped out of bed, pulled the duvet and sheets back and saw a spider running over the other side. It was only tiny, black and shiny, and it ran so quickly. I have never seen anything move so fast. I didn't try to kill it because I felt so ill. "When I looked down I noticed two little pin marks on my chest." Mrs Mitchell suspects the spider was attracted by the electric blanket she had left on overnight. The false widow that bit her was later killed by a local authority pest control team. It was identified by experts at The Natural History Museum. Mrs Mitchell said: "A bite from this kind of female spider would normally give someone a tingling kind of sensation. But if you are allergic, as I am, it can have life or death consequences."

Fal se widow spider spreading across Britain puts woman in intensive care

Bloody illegal immigrants, coming over here, eating our flies

Where are the EDL on this issue, I ask you!

reply to post by Acidtastic


Protesting in a car park somewhere, most likely

I don't like spiders at the best of times but I despise these little buggars. I got bitten on the thigh a few years ago by one. It was only one bite but my entire thigh went purple and the area around the bite was red, hard and incredibly painful. It triggered a long term immune system issue in me though and to this day I have to take antihistamines everyday because I developed urticaria and erupt in hives for absolutely no reason. My body tries to fight itself! I've been left terrified of bees too as I do not know how I would now react to a bee sting.

Nasty vile little spidys.

Originally posted by Britguy
Scary!
I think I was fed upon by a large spider while sleeping last summer. I woke up early morning when my alarm went off at 4:45AM, and shortly afterwards went for a shower and a shave. As soon as I stood in front of the mirror I saw dried blood on my right earlobe. After washing it off I could see two tiny puncture marks about 4-5mm apart, although there was no inflammation or pain from it.

So, I reckon there was some pretty large arachnid feeding on me while I slept. Gave me the shudders thinking about it.

Yeah spiders don't suck your blood mate.
And just to be cliche, im australian and that spider is "soft" i have one much more poisonous about 1 foot away from my leg right now, one of these actually en.wikipedia.org...

Originally posted by Thetawave
I'm sure we're going to get some Austrailians unimpressed with this spider

Lol i don't want to sound like i'm picking on the small things as i have nothing really to contribute to this thread, but i don't understand this international impression that we are all in touch with the environment to that extent.

You grab any australian, and chuck a spider on him/her, and you will have an extremely good chance they will yelp, and run - before grabbing someone else to stare at it for 5 minutes.

I mean, i've had to "rescue" some people from having to endure looking at a spider - and even i've used containers, long tools, anti-persperant, or whatever i had on hand.

I had an apprentice at work today get worried when a spider disappeared out of his sight.

Even we found "iconic" australians like steve irwin and the like quite laughable. Seriously. He was a joke. We probably saw him the same way as most americans.

One could say that all russians are built for fighting - or all british can survive in a tropical rainforest for weeks eating worms/drinking urine.

Sorry, just my 2 cents on something that was probably a small stereotypical observation.

Originally posted by Britguy
Scary!
I think I was fed upon by a large spider while sleeping last summer. I woke up early morning when my alarm went off at 4:45AM, and shortly afterwards went for a shower and a shave. As soon as I stood in front of the mirror I saw dried blood on my right earlobe. After washing it off I could see two tiny puncture marks about 4-5mm apart, although there was no inflammation or pain from it.

So, I reckon there was some pretty large arachnid feeding on me while I slept. Gave me the shudders thinking about it.

i had a night caller arachnid too....
i woke up with 3 red dots on my left big toe and the toe is still numb some 15 years after the incident.
(i suspect that the spider injected that meat digesting juice they have)


it surprises me to this day how i slept through the first two bites... perhaps i was in a lucid dream state and did not get aroused by the bites... the spiders' 3rd bite was when it was likely killed accidently by my sleeping tossing & turning

the culprit was a black widow spider as i found the corpse of it in the bedding during the daylight after being surprised at the 3 red spots on a semi-swollen big toe & discomfort walking

a day later i went to the Baptist hospital (with a swollen leg and tender foot) received a shot & got an RX, 2 days later i had an aneurism pop in my brain...

Originally posted by Flavian
reply to post by Acidtastic

 

Now there is a creature that should be hunted to extinction. Even the money spiders!

Bloody horrible little things. No decent meat on them though so it won't happen!

Now repeat out loud with two lungfulls,eyefulls and earfulls of flies,wasps,and trillions of other bugs that the spiders eat...


I found one of these false widows a couple of years ago-big mouth parts,but it could not bite the tough skin of my fingertips(guitar,manual labor).I could see it trying to.
Then like an idiot I showed it the softer skin on the back of my hand,and you guessed it-big painful red bite lump...
As mentioned,it was similar to a bee sting.

Hehe can't wait to force my bro to read the OP article-he is like a little scardy girl when spiders are even mentioned.
One of the few times he's actually tried to thump me properly was during the film"Arachnophobia"-
I snuck into the room behind him and tickled the back of his neck with a paintbrush just as the spiders attacked in the film.
He jumped so hard he literally left the seat!

I know-I am evil-especially as he was forcing himself to watch the film to help cure his phobia.
Mwhahaha

Australians won't be the only ones unimpressed. Though they have the most poisonous of everything (including things that usually aren't poisonous - like f**king octopus's) . We have worse things then the false widow here in the states. I used to catch black widows as a kid and keep them in jars. Had it been a brown recluse that latched onto this guys head ten times he's face would have practically rotted off (seriously.. ever see a brown recluse bite? I had a friend bitten this year).

I copped a bite from a huntsman and another from god-knows-what-but-it-itches-like-hell just this afternoon while doing some garden work. Happens quite regularly to me actually. Thankfully I usually see the really nasty ones in time to give them the ol shoe treatment before they manage to bite me.

So England has Toys R Us stores? Thought they were only in the US, that was the most interesting part of this story to me. So are all the giant box stores in England? Target, Walmart, Best Buy, Staples, Costco, Bed, Bath and Beyond to name a few?

And if so are they in other European countries also?

Just curious.

reply to post by SunnyDee


Costco and Toys R Us.

Never heard of the others to be honest (apart from Walmart).

reply to post by Kryties


I'd be doing the gardening in full NCB kit, whether it was 90 degrees outside or not!

Out of interest, anything cool happen yet? Do you have tingling spidey senses?

Oh goodness i wish i never read that lol, Im scared enough of spiders let alone thinking they can eat me!! Ok well bite lol

"Shivers"

reply to post by Silcone Synapse


Hey, i happen to like flies and wasps and most of the other critters. Spiders freak me out though. When im Overlord, expect an edict concerning them. That's all i'm saying!

reply to post by Flavian


And staples, there's one near me I'm fairly sure of it.

Not sure if they stock spiders (t otry and keep thread on topic)