Flesh-Eating Spider Bite Burst Man’s Leg Open Mid Flight

A British barrister is lucky to be alive today after he received a near-deadly spider bite that made his leg swell up, change color, and then burst open. Jonathon Hogg was rushed to the hospital and learned just how lucky he was that the venomous spider bite did not cause him to lose his leg or worse, his life.

The barrister told the tale of how he was bitten while on a flight from Doha to Cape Town and was only six hours in when the spider struck. Initially, Hogg was not sure he had been bitten as it really was not all that painful. However, he had immediately turned on the light to investigate and saw a spider as it scurried away to cause two stewardesses on the flight to scream “spider.” Within hours though, the 40-year-old said he was in agonizing pain.

“The pain was like nothing I’ve been through in my life. By the time I got to hospital my leg was bursting open, there was pus, it was black. It was a right mess. They told me if I had been any later I would have lost my leg or even died. It was terrifying.”

It was not during the flight that the pain became excruciating but was instead the following day. Hoggs said that while still on the flight he had already taken a pain killer, and it was when friends saw his ballooning leg the next day was it suggested that a spider may have bitten him and he needed to seek urgent medical care. Hogg was diagnosed as having been bitten by a brown recluse spider, whose venom is potentially fatal, and he learned that he could have lost his leg or even his life if it had not been treated sooner.

The brown recluse spider is so deadly that numerous warnings exist about the spider in the media, and a previous Inquisitr article gives some insight to just how dangerous the brown recluse can be.

During surgery the doctors had to remove a chunk of his leg, which had become dead flesh, in order to stop the progress of the venom. The extent of the damage to his leg was a shock to the barrister when he woke up after the surgery.

“I knew something was wrong but I had no idea how bad it was until I spoke with the surgeon. When he told me how close I had come to losing my leg I was stunned. It really hit home when they removed the bandages and I saw what was left of my leg – it resembled something from a horror film. They had been forced to cut away so much, I was devastated. However, when I realised the extent of my injuries I realized I was just lucky to still have my leg – even if the sight of my leg shocked me when I finally saw it.”

Jonathon Hogg was actually on the trip of a lifetime at the time of the spider bite incident with grand plans for the five months he had taken off work. The Guardian wrote that the barrister had worked at an orangutan sanctuary in Borneo before his travels to South Africa in June and had planned to go diving with sharks. Instead, the active footballer and kickboxing enthusiast spent a month in the hospital, had three surgeries, and received a skin graft.

Even after all these months, he still has not recovered fully and recently learned that the skin graft did not take and he might need another operation.

Hogg has now filed legal actions against Qatar Airlines and says they have not accepted any responsibility at all. He now has a fear of flying and worries that he will never be able to play football or participate in kickboxing any longer.

“All this has left me very traumatised but determined to seek justice. No one should have to go through what I have and if the airline has made a mistake it should take responsibility.”

Buzzfeed reported that a spokesperson for Qatar Airlines spoke to Buzzfeed News and stated they had no knowledge that legal action had been taken and would be investigating the spider bite claims. The Qatar spokesperson said that the only interaction Hobbs had with them was on their website a week after the flight.

“In the circumstances we cannot comment further but will, of course, investigate any further information which is brought to our attention formally. Qatar Airways takes the safety and security of our customers very seriously.”

[Picture Courtesy of Live Science]