A woman in the United States was the victim of a spider bite. Sadly due to the arachnid’s poison, the doctors were forced to amputate one of her legs.
The woman named Kiara Boulton resides in West Memphis in the state of Arkansas. According to her story, she had not realized that a spider had bitten her foot until she entered the shower. There she saw the swelling on one of her fingers and decided to go to St. Francis Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee.
Since the patient is diabetic, some medications were prescribed and was sent back home. Three days later she saw that her finger was changing color and immediately began to worry. She returned to the hospital where she received at least seven surgeries.
The medical team had to amputate her leg. Her limb had suffered much damage due to the powerful poison that the spider applied on her.
How to identify the spider?
The source of the damage was a brown recluse spider ( Loxosceles reclusa). It is known to have a necrotic poison so effective that it can cause irreparable damage. It can affect extremities, internal organs and can even cause death .
This species is common in several places in the United States and Mexico. Usually look for dark and warm environments, and it only bites if it feels threatened. Unfortunately, it will attack if some unsuspecting human happens to be very close to it.
According to experts , this is the way to identify it:
- Instead of having eight eyes like the rest of the spiders, they only have 6 grouped in 3 pairs.
- You can see a brown “violin” shape on top of its cephalothorax (where its head is and its legs are joined).
- Except for its “violin”, it has a uniform sandy color throughout its body. The legs should not be darker nor should they have lines.
- It is very small. The size of its body can vary between 6 and 20 millimeters.