A 10-YEAR-OLD Australian boy has survived a bite from one of the world’s deadliest spiders after taking a record 12 vials of anti-venom according to local media.
Matthew Mitchell was helping his dad clear out the back shed at their home north of Sydney when he was bitten on the finger by a funnel-web spider that had been lurking in his shoe.
“It sort of clawed onto me and all the legs and everything crawled around my finger and I couldn’t get it off,” he told the Daily Telegraph.
His family used his shirt as a compression bandage to try and slow the venom’s spread and rushed him to hospital.
He experienced convulsions but survived after being given 12 vials of anti-venom, which local media said was an Australian record.
The funnel-web spider is among the world’s deadliest. Its venom attacks the nervous system causing foaming at the mouth, muscle spasms and potentially death.
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The spider was caught and taken to the Australian Reptile Park where it will be milked as part of their program to develop anti-venom.
The 10-year-old was “as lucky as they get”, Australian Reptile Park general manager Tim Faulkner told the Telegraph.
Australia is home to a startling number of the world’s deadliest creatures, including snakes, spiders, jellyfish and octopuses.
The funnel web is particularly feared but no deaths have been recorded since anti-venom for its bite was first developed in the 1980s.
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