False Widow spider bites girl

It's very rare that we see a patient in A and E following a spider bite.

If somebody needs to come to A&E following a bite we would take advice from the Hospital for Tropical Diseases.

My other daughter found the spider in the bathroom and we took it to the hospital - but they just laughed and said it had been in the country for years, and it was the way Layla had reacted to the bite.

They contacted a tropical diseases hospital in London and had some special cream couriered down, but that made it worse and had to be washed off. It was awful by then, with vivid orange stuff leaching from the wound. At that point they said she might need to have surgery to wash it out.