Eight-Year-Old Girl Rushed to Surgery After Spider Bites a Hole in Her Hand

Spiders normally aren’t anything to be scared of. Unless you happen to be Little Miss Muffet. Or you live in Australia. Or you’re this little girl from the UK who had to undergo surgery after a spider took a chunk off her hand.

Eight-year-old Abbie Kinnaird was rushed to the hospital for surgery and a skin graft after a brown recluse spider decided her left hand looked like a tasty snack.

Still reeling from her painful experience.

Brown recluse spiders are one of the most venomous spiders in North America. Their bites have often proven to be fatal.

They don’t look like much, really.

In fact, they appear like many other similar spiders. One has to look closely at their six eyes arranged in pairs to identify them.

Abbie’s family home in Essex happened to have a spider infestation. The pest control people warned the family they had to vacate the home for a few weeks.

This happened after one pest control personnel spotted a couple of brown recluse spiders and false widows. However, once he started spraying, more of them appeared.

He told Abbie’s family there might be more of the critters hiding in clothing and toys, and there was a definite risk of them remaining until the pest control company completed the spraying process.

Unfortunately, the warning came too late. Abbie was in the bathroom when a rogue brown recluse rappelled down the ceiling.

…and took a bite off her hand.

The brown recluse spider’s bite is typically painless, but the bite site worsens from the venom which kills off the skin. This necrosis leads to huge holes from such a tiny puncture.

Abbie’s bite started as a small red spot.

It turned into a sore, became inflamed, then blackened.

The spider venom also caused bumps to rise on her arm, so she was rushed to the hospital to get an antibiotic drip in preparation for surgery.

By that time, the bite had progressed to this:

Now the poor girl is terrified of spiders and refuses to return to her home, even after it’s been emptied of every venomous critter.

Can you see the fear behind that courageous smile?

Abbie is lucky to have survived. A five-year-old from Alabama in the U.S. died after a brown recluse spider bit him in November 2014. Abbie spent four days in the hospital for a surgery and a skin graft.

So yes, beware of the brown recluse spider!