Deadly spider bites woman - and then moves in!

by JAYA NARAIN, Daily Mail

Last updated at 09:27 25 August 2005

When Kim Boxwell was nipped by a spider as she ate a banana, she knew she was in big trouble.

Having taken a zoology degree, she recognised the creature as a Brazilian Wandering Spider, the most aggressive and venomous breed on the planet whose bite can kill within two hours.

Her arm began to swell and cause her severe pain, and she broke out in a nasty red rash. Then her temperature soared and she began to have trouble breathing.

Fortunately the spider was only a hatchling and did not pack the full poisonous punch. Mrs Boxwell, 24, reached hospital in time to receive an anti-histamine jab and was discharged after being kept in overnight for observation.

But she remains in fear because she has no idea

where the spider went after she brushed it off her arm.

Although her husband Meredyth vacuumed thoroughly around their home in Cornwall, she fears the South American invader could be growing into an adult and waiting to strike again.

"I hope he got it but we've no way of knowing," she said. "It could just be nesting and growing under one of the cupboards."

Mrs Boxwell, a bank clerk from St Columb Minor, near Newquay, brought the spider home in a bunch of bananas from the Co-op.

"I was eating one and I felt something drop on my arm," she said. "I saw it was a spider, clear and colourless. It was only little and as I brushed it off I felt it bite me.

"I knew they were South American bananas - and there are very few spiders found on bananas that bite.

"Then I recognised the Brazilian Wandering Spider shape. They've got long front legs and the rest of the legs are bunched up round it - they're fast runners.

"The bite was like a pinprick, then I got very hot and it looked like I had a giant stinging nettle bump.

"I rang NHS Direct who told me to wait for three hours. But I started getting pain over my arm, my throat closed up and I couldn't breathe."

Ambulance rush

She called back and an ambulance took her to hospital.

The Brazilian Wandering Spider's venom is 30 times more powerful than that of a rattlesnake.

Also known as the Banana Spider after its favourite hiding place, it is a native to Brazil and northern Argentina, where its diet includes lizards and mice. There is enough poison in an adult's bite to kill 225 mice.

It is incredibly hardy and can survive being frozen, thrown in boiling water and even microwaved for a short period.

If one of its legs becomes damaged it will amputate it with its own mouth - a new shorter leg growing within a few weeks.

Its leg span can reach six inches and it frequently takes up residence in clothes or shoes and, if disturbed, often bites repeatedly in a matter of a couple of seconds.

Since 1926, 14 people are reported to have died from bites, but none since 1996 when an antidote was developed.

Mrs Boxwell added: "I am definitely lucky. It was a young one that bit me and they do not have full venom. But I am worried that stores throw this stuff on the shelves and don't check it.

"The spiders could have been transported all over the country."

A spokesman for the Co-op said: "Our supplier has never before known of any spiders getting through that have been harmful.

"They are very surprised that a harmful pest got through their processes."

The company has promised to check all its bananas and promised to compensate Mrs Boxwell for her ordeal.

But she remains distinctly uneasy. "The thing that worries me is that spiders don't just have one baby," she said. "So where are all the other ones?"