Community rallies around woman who lost toe to spider bite
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GOLDENDALE, Wash. – The community here has rallied to help a woman who lost her toe and nearly her life from a spider bite.
Deborah Heart was picking cherries off her tree on a sunny day in July while wearing Birkenstocks when a spider bite changed her life.
"I felt this intense pain. It was this hot burning sensation, and I knew that something bad had just happened," she said.
Heart had no idea just how serious it was until she went to the doctor the next day and was sent straight to the emergency room for treatment of a poisonous spider bite.
She lost her toe – amputated due to the poison infecting the bone. But she said she could've lost part of her leg or may have died if she waited any longer to see a doctor.
That was the beginning of a scary, and life-threatening battle with the poison from what she believes was either a brown recluse or hobo spider.
The poison spread through her entire body, affected her organs and came close to killing her.
She's now gaining on her health, but the hardest part is accepting help from the community she's been helping as a volunteer for years.
They've raised thousands of dollars to help Heart save her home and pay her medical bills.
"I've had a lot of time to contemplate, 'Why me God? Thanks a lot,'" she said. "It has (tested my faith), but if it wasn't for my faith, my church, my work with the school board, I don't know if I would've survived to this point."
Church members and friends have raised more than $4,000 in just a few days online. Dozens of businesses have also donated thousands of dollars in items to auction off at a fundraiser Friday night.
The brown recluse spider is not native to the Pacific Northwest. In fact, the only brown recluse ever found in the Northwest was in the Yakima Valley town of Prosser in 1978. And that one came from a trailer of household goods brought in from Kansas.
The region does have hobo spiders, however.
I feel for this lady. Â I got bit by a hobo spider on my arm, and it was amazing how much damage it did to my arm....It took MONTHS to heal, and I still have a hole in my arm where it bit me. Â Â YUCK, I hate spiders.Â
I freaking HATE spiders!!! I don't mind snakes or bugs or any other creepy crawlies but spiders freak me the eff out.Â
My husband almost died in 2003 while visiting family here in WA. Â I am posting a link to this and another story that was carried by a local newspaper. Â The newspaper has obviously used the article again since 2003, as this one is dated 2008, but it is the same.Â
http://maggiemarie.hubpages.com/hub/Beware-The-Hobo-Spider
I appreciate this community and this woman for creating awareness of the hobo spider.
Education makes a huge difference.
Oh, Hobo spider....One of my favorite naughty arachnids
@bmoe1111 I thought of your icon as I was writing my post below :)
@bmoe1111Â Dude, your picture makes my skin crawl every time! :)
A neighbor girl was bitten by a spider and the word that got around to my kids was a Brown Recluse. So, I studied up (a lot) and found that it was not a Brown Recluse (rare to nonexistent here), but perhaps a Hobo spider.Â
They are funnel weavers. Those funnel webs you see inside and out? Those are funnel weavers' webs. They do not make the normal webs we think of. These spiders are mostly visible during spider mating season - Late August to early Sept. because they make trips away from their funnels to mate. There's some nasty stories about how MANY spiders come out during this time (shudder), and how FAST they are.
The other important thing I learned is that there are 3 types of common funnel weavers in the Hobo spider family: Hobo spiders, Giant House spiders and some other one (Barn spider?) that is primarily found in Ea. WA only (so I promptly forgot it). One of the reasons this is important is that the Giant House spider directly competes with the Hobo spider for turf. Therefore they are a very effective way to keep Hobo spiders out/away .
The UW has a great page I found on how to tell the difference. The venom of the Hobo is the one that can cause necrosis. The other two will just give you a nasty bite (unless you get an infection). Telling the difference is not easy, and spider experts (I'm sure there's a name, but it eludes me), actually look at their palps (male and female parts). But the layman's rule of thumb I learned was you have to catch them (fun w/ a glass and piece of paper), and look at their cephalothorax (where their legs join their body). Hobo's have a solid brown/beige cephalothorax, whereas the Giant House Spider has dots all around at each point where their legs meet. The problem is that if they have not molted enough times, they may not have this distinction (hence the reason the experts look at their palps).
So, my kids think I'm crazy (I probably am), but I caught a lot of spiders over the last year and have become pretty fascinated with them. And have learned that the ones we have are Giant House spiders. I did call the exterminator because I couldn't deal with them in the numbers we had them, and still don't want them around, but the ones I do find, I set free outside.
Sorry for the long winded post, but if it helps, ya never know :)@Thunder im so glad someones finally setting the story straight! for years i have been reading up on spiders, and have known about the hobo spider. i have had many people tell me stories about how they or someone they knew had to go to the doctor because of a spider bite and the dr would tell them it was a brown recluse, i kept telling people we dont have brown recluses! do your research! i too will trap spiders if i find one and examine them. i still havent found a hobo spider. im impressed that komo actually got the facts straight too. mabye more people will realize we dont have brown recluses up here!
@Thunder Great post. It also reminds me of how fragile and precious life is... Hug all your loved ones today! Sure glad she'll be ok!
@Thunder Very informative. Thank you so much for this information.
Had no idea we had any here who could do that. Looking at it on the web looks like they can be a nasty bite.
Don't have RECLUSE here!? My A$$! My apartment complex gets INVADED by them every year! It's usually the worst around late Summer and early Fall. If they have only found ONE recluse here that they assume was brought in from some other state....I highly suggest a visit to Kitsap county. They'd flip their lids if they saw the brown recluse population here! Can't find them when they look? Just send them to my house. I can walk outside and point out a few within two minutes flat that are nesting around the outside of the house.
A picture of said spider would have been helpful. Wish her well, sounds like she is a real asset to her community.Â
@Alert Eagle Uh uh. We don't need no spider pictures!!!
@Alert Eagle Google is a helpful tool in looking up what a brown recluse or hobo spider look like. Try it some time. :)
@PrairieDawn @Alert Eagle Uncalled for.
no one needs an assault spider capable of that kind of carnage. should be a law that limits the amount of poison a spider can carry. if it saves one childs life.. just one toe, then laws against poisonous spiders will have been worth it.
@everyoneelse Venemous comment. Why so biting, everyoneelse?
@everyoneelseÂ
Well-Stated! I think we have our newest "Idiot of the Minute" award recipient!