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Teacher Bitten On Eye By False Widow Spider Thought He Was Suffering A Stroke

A teacher has described how he woke up with his face throbbing and one side starting to sag after what he says was a reaction to a false widow spider bite.

Spider season often begins in September or October in UK homes. There are about 650 species of spider, ranging from those with a leg span of just a couple of millimetres to the 12cm leg span of the cardinal spider.

(Please note, this article contains pictures of spiders)

When Stuart Vesty, from Sandwich in Kent, woke with a start, he was initially worried he was having a stroke and went to Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent.

However, before he left, Vesty noticed the squashed corpse of a spider in his bed and, suspecting it may have bitten him, boxed it up and took it with him to the hospital.

Doctors confirmed he had been bitten and after an examination confirmed it was a false widow spider, he said.

False widow spiders can be found in the UK and are known to have a venomous bite. (Getty)

The false widow has been linked, in very rare cases, to reports of rotting flesh and severe pain, although the Natural History Museum says these have not always been supported by formal identification and any symptoms are likely caused by secondary infection.

'My wife was worried'

Fearing the bite had perforated Vesty's eyeball, doctors poured a dye into his eye to determine where he had been bitten, leaving a glowing green residue - he joked that it left him resembling Arnold Schwarzenegger's cyborg character from the film The Terminator.

He said: "When I got up in the morning, it looked like I had had a stroke. One side of my face was sagging, my wife was really quite worried."

Stuart Vesty's 'Terminator' eye after he was bitten on the eyelid by a false widow spider. (Kennedy)

After running tests, doctors concluded he had been bitten on his eyelid and not his eyeball.

Vesty said: "My face was really swollen so I was quite worried, and very relieved when it came back to normal.

"If it had been the eyeball it would've been much more serious, I feel very lucky."

How venomous are false widow spiders?

Although false widows do have a venomous bite, experts at the Natural History Museum say the venom is not particularly potent. Usually the only symptom is pain at the site which may radiate away from the bite. It usually lasts between one and 12 hours, and rarely for more than 24 hours.

Often, the symptoms are no worse than the pain of a wasp sting.

Males are more prone to biting. But this is only because they leave the nest in search of a mate, often venturing indoors looking for females. They are only known to bite when provoked or trapped against skin.

Black widow spiders are much more dangerous than false widows if they bite but are not native to the UK. (Getty Images)

Why are there more spiders in September?

As autumn approaches, male spiders mature and leave their webs – concealed in nooks and crannies in houses – to search for females. They therefore are sighted much more, leading to the idea that September and October are 'spider season'.

The Natural History Museum says that while it might seem like false widow spiders make a dash for homes as soon as the weather gets chilly, they can actually be seen inside all year round.

Temperature may be one cause of the arachnid exodus as they attempt to get out of the cold, but some may have long gone unnoticed in the darkened corners of the house.

Jan Beccaloni, curator of the Arachnida and Myriapoda collection at the museum, said: "Next time you find an unwanted spider in your house, please don't kill it! Either leave it in peace, or humanely put it out in your shed."

False Widow Spider Bite Leaves Teacher's Eye Oozing Green Gunk And Face Throbbing

After being bitten by a false widow spider, the pain woke Stuart Vesty up in agony in the middle of the night. By the morning his face had started to sag and he feared he was having a stroke

A false widow spider bit Stuart Vesty and, after being seen by doctors, his eye started oozing green gunk (Kennedy News and Media)

The venom of a common British garden spider left a teacher in agony and fearing he was having a stroke after he was bitten on his eyelid. Stuart Vesty, 50, woke up in the middle of the night with his face throbbing painfully from the spider bite.

By the morning his face was sagging like a stroke victim and there was the squashed corpse of a spider in his bed. He rushed to hospital with the spider in a box, believing the creepy-crawly was the fanged culprit.

At hospital, NHS doctors confirmed the dad-of-two had a severe reaction to a bite from a spider. On examining the mangled body of the creature, a doctor confirmed that it was a false widow spider, whose venom causes human cells to rot away.

Fearing the bite had perforated Stuart's eyeball and could threaten his eyesight, doctors poured a dye into his eye to determine where the spider bit him, leaving a glowing green residue around his eye. Hours later, Stuart's eye began to ooze a bright green liquid that he joked made it look eerily similar to the bionic eye of Arnold Schwarzenegger's cyborg character from the 1984 hit film The Terminator.

Stuart, a health and social care trainer from Sandwich, in Kent, said: "I was getting ready to go to bed and I'd forgotten something in the outside office and went to go and get that. We'd put up a gazebo that day in the garden and I'm not sure if that's where the spider was but I banged my head on the gazebo on the way back in because it was dark.

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A false widow spider bit Stuart Vesty on his eyelid, causing him excruciating pain and causing his face to sag like a stroke victim(Kennedy News and Media)

"I got into bed and later in the night woke up with a really bad pain and throbbing down one side of my face. I got up in the night, took some antihistamines and went back to sleep.

"When I got up in the morning, it looked like I had had a stroke. One side of my face was sagging, my wife was really quite worried.

"We got ready to go to hospital and as we were getting ready, I noticed a spider actually in the bed that had been squashed. I put it together that this was a spider bite and thought 'it's dead and I'll put it in something and take it to the hospital, they might be able to identify it'.

"We took it down to the hospital in Margate and it was quite funny as [staff] were terrified, they didn't want me to bring out the spider. I eventually saw a really great doctor and he said 'I don't suppose you caught the spider?' and I said 'yes', showed it to him and he confirmed it was a false widow spider."

After running a gauntlet of tests on Stuart, at the Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother Hospital in Margate, Kent, including pouring the dye into his eye, they concluded his eyeball hadn't been punctured and that he'd been bitten on his eyelid instead.

Stuart Vesty, from Kent, had a severe reaction when a false widow spider bit him on the eyelid(Kennedy News and Media)

Stuart, whose dramatic story unfolded on August 16, said: "I didn't really know anything about false widow spiders other than it's the most venomous spider here. He put this stuff in my eye. I couldn't exactly see where the bite was so his concern was that it was on the actual eyeball.

"He had to put in dye whilst doing an examination to check the eyeball wasn't perforated and luckily it wasn't. It was actually in the eyelid but quite close to the eyeball. I was relieved to find it hadn't perforated my eyeball, I didn't have too much of a look at it.

"But when I finally looked at it, it did look really bad. It was green, my face was really swollen so I was quite worried and very relieved when it came back to normal.

"When I was very little I had a stick thrown that went into that eye. I was a very young person to receive an artificial lens implant. I don't have great vision in that eye anyway so it wouldn't have been good if it was the other eye [that was bitten].

"There is a slight colour difference between the two eyes so my wife always jokes that that's my Terminator eye, I certainly looked like it when it turned green. When I saw what it looked like, I was just jokingly thinking 'if I lose this eye, I want a full Arnie Terminator eye'."

The dead body of the false widow spider that bit Stuart Vesty(Kennedy News and Media)

Feeling lucky not to have lost his sight, Stuart said he has a newfound respect for the seemingly harmless critters that can be found in most UK gardens.

Stuart said: "If it had been the eyeball it would've been much more serious, I feel very lucky. I didn't know much about false widow spiders but when I looked it up I read that there are people out there who have lost a hand, so I really feel lucky it was all okay.

"I'm much more aware of spiders - I certainly have a lot more respect for English spiders."

UK's Most Dangerous Spider Leaves Rapper's Leg A 'balloon' After Revenge Attack

WARNING: Graphic images. Rapper Shane Parmenter, from Chelmsford, said that he thought he had squashed the noble false widow, considered to be the UK's most dangerous spider, before it bit him while he slept

Shane said the it was a "revenge" spider attack (

Image: Credit: Shane Parmenter/Pen News)

A rapper has told how the UK's most dangerous spider left his leg swollen "like a balloon" in a "revenge" attack at a music studio.

Shane Parmenter, 36, from Chelmsford, was bitten by a noble false widow after he failed in a bid to squash it. Having fallen asleep in the studio, Shane whose stage name is MC Napz, woke up to a stinging sensation and the sight of a spider scurrying away.

"My mate was laughing his head off. He said 'it's gonna come back and do ya' and I was like 'yeah alright'," said Shane. "We ended up both falling asleep in the studio, and I felt something in the night bite me. It felt like a bee sting. When I woke up in the morning, I felt another big sting, and then a false widow ran out of my trouser leg. Pretty much straight away it all went red, it was a bit uncomfortable.

"It got a whole lot worse. My leg swelled up like a balloon. I felt sick, I felt nauseous, I was dizzy, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat." Following advice from the NHS 111 helpline, Shane drew around the bite with a pen so he would see if it was swelling – but his injury quickly outgrew the markings.

Shane said he felt a bite during the night (

Image:

Credit: Shane Parmenter/Pen News) He said how he started to feel sick and couldn't sleep following the bite (

Image:

Credit: Shane Parmenter/Pen News)

He said: "It went from a little mark on my leg, to massive – it just kept getting bigger and bigger, more swollen and swollen. You could see that it was getting infected." At Sittingbourne Memorial Hospital, medics cleaned and dressed the wound, and gave him a course of antibiotics. "I took the pad off and it was just literally horrific: blood and big lumps of pus oozing out of my leg. It was so painful," he told of cleaning the wound, reported the Daily Star.

The bite has also had mental health repercussions for Shane, and impacted on his work with his record label, D&B Politics. "It was really hard to cope with," he said. "Not being able to go to work and not being able to do my side-job, or even sit at my laptop and do my promotions and release some music.

"I've got my own studio so I like to get really creative in the studio, but I couldn't think straight. It's made me a bit shook of spiders. I wasn't scared of spiders before but I definitely damn well am now." The noble false widow is "widely regarded as the most dangerous spider breeding in Britain," according to a 2020 paper by Clive Hambler, an Oxford University zoologist. But they're unlikely to attack unless provoked or trapped between clothes and skin.

Shane warned other people: "They're the sort of spider that if you just leave them alone, they will not even bother you. My advice to other people would be: if you find a false widow in your house, leave it."

* This article was crafted with the help of an AI tool, which speeds up The Mirror's editorial research. An editor reviewed this content before it was published. You can report any errors to webhomepage@mirror.Co.Uk

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