- Rob Harris was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider while in Cancun, Mexico
- 32-year-old said it felt like nothing more than a mosquito bite
- But when he and girlfriend Tina spotted the spider they feared the worst
- His right leg began to swell, and looked like it was ‘inflated with a pump’
- Doctors sent him to hospital where he was given antibiotics
- But when they got home to Harlow, Essex, he said the bite got worse
- ‘There was a hole in my leg so big you could stick a cotton bud in it’ he said
- At hospital, doctors gave him stronger medication to treat the infection
- WARNING GRAPHIC CONTENT
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When cage fighter Rob Harris felt something bite his leg on holiday he thought it was nothing more than a mosquito.
The now 32-year-old and his girlfriend Tina Higginson were in Cancun, Mexico, having celebrated a friend’s wedding last February.
It was only when the couple spotted a spider crawling on the floor, near the bed, they realised the situation could be more serious.
Within hours, Mr Harris’ lower right leg had inflated to twice its size, as poison surged through his veins.
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While on holiday in Cancun, Mexico, Rob Harris (pictured with his girlfriend Vicky Higginson) was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider, leaving him with a hole in his leg and bed-bound for weeks recovering
Mr Harris said the bite felt like a mosquito bite, but within hours, his lower right leg started to swell up. The area around the bite became red and inflamed, and was hot to touch, he told MailOnline
He had been bitten by a Brown Recluse spider – a small arachnid with a potent, venomous bite.
The bite was start of a month-long ordeal which left him with three holes in his leg, oozing pus.
‘It didn’t really hurt to start with,’ Mr Harris told MailOnline.Â
‘We weren’t sure what it was to start with, it felt a bit like a bug bite.
‘I
was in bed. It wasn’t even a very big spider, I just flicked
something off my leg and only later realised it was a spider.
‘I started to react really quickly. Within hours my knee had ballooned. It didn’t half kick in quick.
‘My leg just kept growing, like it had been inflated with a pump.
‘It got to the point when you couldn’t even see my knee cap.’
Refusing to see a doctor, it was Miss Higginson who insisted her boyfriend be seen by a medic.
The 27-year-old, told MailOnline: ‘It was pretty scary. When it first happened we just thought it was a mosquito bite.
‘It wasn’t until we saw the spider than we realised what had happened.
‘Rob was refusing to call the doctor, but as it started to swell I just decided to call the resort doctor.
‘As soon as they said the word “hospital†to us, I was terrified. You automatically assume the worst.’
Mr Harris said he started to worry about the cost of treatment aboard, despite the couple having travel insurance.
‘We
had heard horror stories about hospital stays on our trip, and while we
had insurance you often have to pay thousands up front,’ he said.
‘We were at the end of our two week holiday, it had been pretty pricey.
Mr Harris was bitten by a Brown Recluse spider, a small spider often measuring six to 20mm, with a powerful, venomous bite
The couple were due to fly home the next morning, but instead found themselves in hospital where doctors prescribed Mr Harris anti-biotics to try and treat the bite
A SMALL SPIDER WITH A POWERFUL, VENOMOUS BITE
The brown recluse spider is a small arachnid, measuring between six and 20mm, with a venomous bite.
The species often live between one and two years.Â
Each female produces several egg sacs over a period of two to three months from May to July, with around 50 eggs in each.
The eggs hatch over the course of a month.
The spiderlings take about a year to grow to adulthood.
The speicies is resilient and can withstand up to six months of extreme drought and scarcity or absense of food.
They are found roughly south of a line from southeastern Nebraska through southern Iowa, Illinois, Indiana to southwestern Ohio.
The species is rarely aggressive, and bites are uncommon.
The spider ususally only bites when pressed against the skin, when tangled in clothes, towels, bedding, etc.
The bite is often not immediately painful but can be dangerous.
The species bears the potentially deadly hemotoxic venom.
Most bites are minor but in more severe cases the venom spreads throughout the body and can form a necrotising ulcer that destroys soft tissue and may take months to heal, leaving deep scars.
‘By the time we got to hospital my knee had started to blow up really bad.
‘Doctors told me I wasn’t allowed to fly and had to wait another day and a half before we were allowed to head home.’
But when the couple arrived home to Harlow, Essex, Mr Harris’ recovery did not go according to plan.
While in most cases a bite from a Brown Recluse Spider is minor, Mr Harris was one of the unlucky ones.
He suffered what is known as a necrotising ulcer, where the poison eats away at the flesh around the site of the bite.
He told MailOnline: ‘It was horrible. The poison must’ve really got in there.
‘There was a hole in my leg so big you could stick a cotton bud in it.’
He waited for a while to see if the medication he had been given would start to work.
But a week later and still taking antibiotics, the treatment ‘just wasn’t doing anything’, Mr Harris told MailOnline.
‘My leg was hot, like it was burning, he said. ‘I could see it was turning into an open wound.
‘I squeezed it and what came out was the most disgusting thing I have seen. It was pouring out of my leg, it was horrible.
With
pus streaming down his leg, Mr Harris was admitted to hospital, where
doctors prescribed more antibiotics to try and stem the spread of the
infection.
He said: ‘Tina
took me back to hospital, they informed my that the venom was eating
away at my skin which was preventing the wound from healing.
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