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Kid in a 2 week coma from spider


Dan Andrews

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http://forterietimes.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2762540

Couple wants to raise awareness about spider bite

Local News

Posted By Kris Dubé

Posted 5 hours ago

It seemed like a harmless game of hide and seek in the backyard...but days later one of the participants was hanging onto dear life in the hospital.

In August, Cheryl Burnham and her boyfriend Omar Bailey joined some friends at a backyard on Parkdale Avenue in Crescent Park. There were about a half dozen children there, so naturally some fun and games ensued.

Everyone at the gathering decided a couple rounds of "manhunter," a form of hide and seek, would be a great way to spend the afternoon.

When Bailey hid behind a shed in the backyard, he felt something bite his leg.

He brushed himself off and didn't think too much about it.

Days later, he suffered from an extremely high fever and his girlfriend Cheryl immediately took him to the Miller Fillmore Hospital in Buffalo, considering he is a U.S resident.

"He was dripping with sweat, that's how bad the fever was," said Burnham.

His health quickly deteriorated and he eventually spent two weeks in a coma, after what Burnham says doctors explained to be the result of a bite from a brown recluse spider. The small insect laid eggs inside him and Bailey has endured nine surgeries to remove the eggs and anything else the dangerous critter left behind.

Bailey was able to overcome the ordeal and is no longer in the hospital but both he and Cheryl want the community to take extra precaution when spending time in the outdoors. Considering there were several small children at the backyard gathering that day, they are thankful it wasn't one of them that had to go through this near-death experience.

"If it was one of the children, they wouldn't have survived this," said Burnham recently.

"This is really serious, people need to know these things are around here," she added.

At one point, doctors told the couple Bailey may need to have his leg amputated, because of the deep cut the bite caused around most of his hip. He is currently going through rehabilitation and on track to getting his life back to normal.

"People really need to know these things are around," he said.

Calls to the ministry of natural resources on this species were not returned.

Article ID# 2762540

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Nasty spiders. Several years ago my dad got bit in the leg by one, about 3/4 the way up his calf. Within 24 hours, the bite had spread to more than half his leg, from the knee down. At 48 hours, he couldn't walk, and the skin was turning black. He went through five rounds of antibiotic injections, and had the wound cleaned three times, and it still wasn't healing three weeks later.

One day while he was changing his dressing, he noticed one part of the wound to be worse looking than the rest (and believe me, all of it was nasty). So he took a scalpel, and started to cut away at it. After twenty minutes or so, he removed a hard chunk of tissue that was almost completely black. He took it to the doctor, who put it in a jar of alcohol. Two hours later, the chunk had broke open, and baby spiders were spilling into the alcohol.

We later learned that females will often lay eggs inside animals they bite, so the young have food when they hatch. The doctor estimated he had two or three more days before the egg sac would have broke open on it's own. Needless to say, I now HATE spiders more than I ever have in my life.

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Nasty spiders. Several years ago my dad got bit in the leg by one, about 3/4 the way up his calf. Within 24 hours, the bite had spread to more than half his leg, from the knee down. At 48 hours, he couldn't walk, and the skin was turning black. He went through five rounds of antibiotic injections, and had the wound cleaned three times, and it still wasn't healing three weeks later.

One day while he was changing his dressing, he noticed one part of the wound to be worse looking than the rest (and believe me, all of it was nasty). So he took a scalpel, and started to cut away at it. After twenty minutes or so, he removed a hard chunk of tissue that was almost completely black. He took it to the doctor, who put it in a jar of alcohol. Two hours later, the chunk had broke open, and baby spiders were spilling into the alcohol.

We later learned that females will often lay eggs inside animals they bite, so the young have food when they hatch. The doctor estimated he had two or three more days before the egg sac would have broke open on it's own. Needless to say, I now HATE spiders more than I ever have in my life.

ya that is so disgusting. lol. what do these spiders look like?

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I've heard about these spiders and the word "recluse" means they hide in places where they are not seen & I don't like that ! We also have black widows that usually come in from other countries in grapes etc . When working in places like crawl spaces & old sheds etc.where wood has been laying around for long periods , it's best to wear coverals or long sleeve shirts & pants to avoid being a host . That must have been a scary scene with your Dad D.E. .Spiders give me the willies ,don't care for them at all .....but I don't kill the ones in my garden ,they scare the squirrels away......

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A home wine maker in Toronto found a black widow spider in the box of grapes he purchased yesterday . The article said the venom from a bws is 15 times stronger than a rattle snake . His wife asked how many more spiders went into the wine and said she will not drink any of this wine (if she only knew what goes into much of our food and drink) :o

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One day while he was changing his dressing, he noticed one part of the wound to be worse looking than the rest (and believe me, all of it was nasty). So he took a scalpel, and started to cut away at it. After twenty minutes or so, he removed a hard chunk of tissue that was almost completely black. He took it to the doctor, who put it in a jar of alcohol. Two hours later, the chunk had broke open, and baby spiders were spilling into the alcohol.

did this make anyone else hungry?

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Theres a very slim chance that you will ever find a black widow in your home, Spider above in pic is harmless. Most spiders dont bite you at all, and for the ones that do they will be just an itchy red dots or small bumps, pretty harmless, im pretty sue everyone has had them once or twice in there life.

007

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One thing we got to remember is though they are creepy they remove so many unwanted insects from our backyards and our homes. I for one would rather a house full of spiders versus a house full of mosquitoes which could potentially carry something worse than spider venom.(west nile, H.I.V etc) but the good part of my almost blackened heart goes out to the poor guy who was bitten.

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One thing we got to remember is though they are creepy they remove so many unwanted insects from our backyards and our homes. I for one would rather a house full of spiders versus a house full of mosquitoes which could potentially carry something worse than spider venom.(west nile, H.I.V etc) but the good part of my almost blackened heart goes out to the poor guy who was bitten.

just for clarification if this is something that worries you, mosquitos are unable to carry/transfer enough of the HIV virus to infect another person

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just for clarification if this is something that worries you, mosquitos are unable to carry/transfer enough of the HIV virus to infect another person

West nile is a big enough scare as it is.

007

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