We’ve heard mixed stories about white-tail spiders, which are common on the Kapiti Coast. Some say they’re harmless, others that they are dangerous. One of us was bitten 7 years ago, and while painful initially there were otherwise no ill-effects. See this post
from the NZ Herald
A real estate agent is warning people not to be a “hero” after he put off seeking medical attention for a spider bite and ended up in hospital unable to walk.
Andy Stewart recognises he’s lucky to be alive and faces months of antibiotics and rehabilitation following the debilitating injury.
Stewart was riding his motorbike in the South Island for the Burt Munro rally last month when he felt an “excruciating” pain in his chest from what he believes was a white-tail spider which had worked its way inside his jacket and T-shirt.
The Palmerston North man instinctively crushed the offending bug, then pulled over to treat the bite, focusing more on his injury than on what had inflicted it.
“I’ve had spider bites and wasp bites before, but nothing like this,” he said.
He regrets what he did next – simply carrying on with his motorbike trek instead of seeing a doctor for the bite, which he said was a concerning one.
A few days later he noticed his shoulder was feeling stiff, but thought he had tweaked an old injury and didn’t think much more of it. As the pain worsened and his shoulder swelled, he stopped at Greymouth Hospital to ask for the shoulder to be strapped.
Stewart continued on through the pain, even working a couple of shifts when he returned home from the rally.
By about a week after the bite, he said he “wasn’t feeling that crash hot”, and found his leg had also swelled up and he was unable to walk. The following morning he called an ambulance and was taken to hospital.
It was only about that point Stewart connected the bite to the shoulder and leg injury, and asked the doctor if it was possible the bite had caused it. This was later confirmed.
“He said to me ‘you are lucky to be here’.”