Paraplegic Man Suffers Spider Bite, Walks Again

CBS13 ^ | 3/12/2009 | Mike Dello Stritto

[LibWhacker]

He's been confined to a wheelchair for 20 years. Now a paraplegic man is walking again. And his doctors call it a miracle. CBS13 went to Manteca to find out how a spider bite helped get him back on his feet.

"I closed my eyes and then I was spinning like a flying saucer," explains David Blancarte.

A motorcycle accident almost killed David 21 years ago. At the time he might have wished he was dead.

"I asked my doctor, "sir what happened?' I can't feel my legs," said David.

Ever since, David's been relying on his wheelchair to get around. Then the spider bite. A Brown Recluse sent him to the hospital, then to rehab for eight months.

"I'm here for a spider bite. I didn't know I would end up walking," says David.

A nurse noticed David's leg spasm and ran a test on him.

"When they zapped my legs, I felt the current, I was like whoa and I yelled," he says.

He felt the current and the rush of a renewed sense of hope.

"She says,'your nerves are alive. They're just asleep," explained David.

Five days later David was walking.

"I was walking on the bar back and forth," he said.

Now David is out of the hospital and on his feet and walking.

David basks in his glory and gives a ray of hope to other hoping to walk again. The 48-year-old former boxer and dancer are taking it in stride, knowing his best days are still ahead.

David's dream is to see his 14-year-old twin daughters grow up and get married so he can walk them down the aisle and have that first dance.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

Does Bambi know about this ?

[TalonDJ]

The thirty second rounds following by rhythmic white flag waving.

That is the thing where they do the big dance number with the ref and the girls that hold up the signs, right? Didn't they use to have that in the olympics?

[shibumi]

My personal physician, an internal medicine specialist who I went to high school with, was hospitalized for sic weeks and nearly died from such a bite.

He hasn’t prescribed it for any of his patients yet.

[shibumi]

Zero just hasn’t had a chance to claim credit for it yet.

Still waitiing for the sea level to fall.

[i are a cowboy]

Maybe that is what really happened to Chris Matthews

[Boucheau]

The Brown Recluse (Fiddleback, or Violin Spider) has a nasty bite, folks.

Sometimes causing horrible scarring, loss of extremeties and even death.

They are hunting spiders (transient) and avoid human contact.

In short, they are badass and very good at what they do.

You do not want to get bitten by this one.



From Wikipedia:

Recluse spiders build irregular webs that frequently include a shelter consisting of disorderly threads. These spiders frequently build their webs in woodpiles and sheds, closets, garages, plenum, cellars and other places that are dry and generally undisturbed. They seem to favor cardboard when dwelling in human residences, possibly because it mimics the rotting tree bark which they inhabit naturally. They also tend to be found in shoes, inside dressers, in bed sheets of infrequently used beds, in stacks of clothes, behind baseboards, behind pictures and near furnaces. The common source of human-recluse contact is during the cleaning of these spaces, when their isolated spaces are suddenly disturbed and the spider feels threatened. Unlike most web weavers, they leave these webs at night to hunt. Males will move around more when hunting with the female spiders tending to remain nearer to their webs.

I hear tell that hospitals in the midwest are getting an increasing number of people with recluse bites. I don't know why.

[snarks_when_bored]

That’s gay-ish.

[Ghost of Philip Marlowe]

Brilliant reply!!! Spot-on.

[Larry Lucido]

his 14-year-old twin daughters

Well, at least he was able to do that during the past 20 years.

[bvw]

Wow! What a marvelous act of G-d! Or two acts ... both are marvelous.

[Dead Corpse]

[theDentist]

Mebbe that Brown Recluse wanted the chair all to himself. No matter what reason, I’m sure he’s thanking Him. And researchers should be looking into what’s in these Brown Recluse’s venom.

[RandallFlagg]

Great Mazinga??

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

The Ozarks in Missouri are a prime area for Brown Recluses. I got bit by one about 8 years ago. I was lucky and it left only a very small scar after my arm swelled up for about a week.

[Anitius Severinus Boethius]

I think the 8 weeks of rehab was only after the spider bite “rebooted” his nervous system. 20 years of muscle atrophy will need rehab to get them working well again.

[television is just wrong]

wonder what kind of spider.

[television is just wrong]

I remember an asian woman at my kids grammar school who would walk to pick up the kids. on the way, she’d gather bees from plants she passed, and collect them in a plastic grocery bag. I asked her one day and she says it helps with her arthritis.

HMM, I’m allergic to bees. Made me nervous being around her with all those bees collected in her plasatic bag.

[Dead Corpse]

A bit less “teh ghey” than the other one posted.

[bgill]

Maybe it was a spider that got to Chris Matthews’ leg.

[TribalPrincess2U]

I wonder if anyone has experimented with spider venom
or other venom for nerve “awakening”