Girl, 3, Left Unable To Walk After Being Bitten By A Venomous False Widow Spider
Ella Williamson, 3, was left unable to walk after a false widow spider bit on her the leg, causing a “huge eight-inch blister” to develop, according to the Mirror.“It was the worst time of my life. I thought something was eating her from the inside. It just kept getting bigger,” said Williamson’s 24-year-old mother, Bobbie-Louis Willis of Dover, Kent. “She wouldn’t let me touch it. So she must have been suffering in pain. I would hate to see anyone go through what she went through.”
On March 20, Williamson went to spend time with her father, Matthew Williamson, 28, – who is separated from her mother – at his home in Folkestone. When she returned home two days later, her mother noticed a small blister on her leg and discovered that she had been bitten by a false widow spider while playing. Willis took her daughter to a local hospital the following morning, after it had “doubled in size.”
3-year-old left with horrific wounds after False Widow spider attack http://t.co/FfFoX0hkLI pic.twitter.com/NjIulcXjq8
— Daily Mirror (@DailyMirror) September 16, 2015
After arriving at the hospital, “She was given antibiotics and sent home, but the day after it had tripled in size and looked like her leg was being eaten away,” said Willis, who was pregnant with her son, Oliver, at the time. “I took her back to hospital as she was being sick and was really poorly. I was very worried, at first I thought it might be meningitis, so horrible thoughts were going through my head.”
“We waited for a skin specialist, who said it was a false widow spider bite. She couldn’t walk and had to be carried everywhere. It was horrible to see my daughter in that way.”
When Williamson returned to the hospital, she was later transferred to William Harvey Hospital in Ashford, where she was bedridden for a night and had to be put on “very strong antibiotics.” She was able to return home, but didn’t recover until a month later, and it took approximately three months for the false widow spider bite to completely heal, according to the Express.
After being unable to walk and enduring excruciating pain from the spider bite, Williamson is doing great and has returned to Next Steps Pre-School, where she attends school, without any scarring or permanent damage to her leg.
Knowing what her 3-year-old daughter went through after being bitten by a false widow spider, she said that every time she’d catch a spider she would “always put the spiders outside,” but now she claims that she will “definitely kill one straight away now.”
