Posted on 04/27/2005 6:18:08 PM PDT by Dan from Michigan
Briton bitten by tropical spider saved by camera phone
Wed Apr 27, 7:36 AM ET Offbeat - AFP
LONDON (AFP) - When British chef Matthew Stevens was bitten by a huge spider he photographed it with his camera phone, presuming friends would never believe the story. It was a decision which may have saved his life.
The 23-year-old collapsed soon afterwards and as doctors fought to save him he remembered the picture, which was sent to Bristol Zoo in western England, a report in the Times newspaper said on Wednesday.
Experts at the zoo recognised the creature as Brazilian Wandering Spider -- one of the deadliest spiders in the world -- and doctors were able to adapt their treatment suitably.
The ordeal began when Stevens was cleaning a freezer at the pub where he works, the Quantock Gateway in Bridgwater, southwest England and the spider, believed to have stowed away in a bunch of bananas, attacked.
"It was hiding in a cloth and when I squeezed the cloth it bit me. It was about as big as the palm of my hand. I went to try and pick it up and it bit me again. It landed in the freezer, which stunned it," he was quoted as saying.
Assuming the spider was dead, Stevens used his mobile phone camera to take its picture as a souvenir and sought medical treatment.
Despite being dizzy and shaking, staff at a local community hospital told Stevens he should simply go home to rest.
But shortly after returning home, the chef collapsed as the spider's venom worked through his system, and he was rushed to hospital.
"I thought I wasn't going to make it. My chest was so tight I could hardly breathe. My blood pressure was going through the roof and my heart was beating so hard I could feel it hitting my chest," he said.
"The doctors didn't know what type of spider it was, but I'd got a picture of it on my phone and they sent it to Bristol Zoo to identify it."
Doctors were able to treat Stevens by giving him oxygen and increasing the flow of saline into his blood to flush the toxins out of his system, and he was discharged the next day.
Good thing it wasn't a violin spider...you don't want to fiddle around with them.
spider pong
British "medicine" strikes again!
I could take rats running across my face in Nam,
but spiders? Kill,kill,kill,kill!
fun words:
briton bitten.
That's the British medical system for you. You get bitten twice by a huge spider and they send you home to get some rest!
Oh yeah...it's French.
Quite a story/ I wish the chef a speedy recovery.
Yeah, it looks much more like a tarantula to me. I also didn't know that camera phones are able to focus (the spider is in focus but the guy's hand isn't).
Ah, not too "brite", huh.
LOL! I love it.
YOu're right, that ia a tarantula... as far as I know it's not a "true" spider, whatever that means. To me it's an eight-legged beastie, every bit as ugly as all other eight-legged beasties! EEEEEK!
Snapshot from the Twilight Zone meets the Global Village. No wonder the concepts of what is a native species, what is an exotic are blurred. Hence the challenge of maintaining AND DEFENDING borders after the ravages of fifty years of deconstruction.
Yeah, the nurses were really shaken up by this incident, it would seem.
I love spiders... when they are at a distance or when I am in control and know they are not going to do anything strange, but I can't stand them if they just suddenly decide to drop in on you (had that happen to me while reading a book, spider just dropped down on her web between me and the book, scared the life out of me).
Also it is amazing that the medai can't even find a picture of the right spider how can we expect them to be any more acurrate on matters of greater importance!
I guess nowadays all the brighter students have something better to do with their lives than become journalists, which well unfortunately leaves us with the not so bright folks pursuing journalism and other non mentaly taxing courses of study...
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