A 60-year-old man was bitten in his sleep by a spider, causing necrosis of his hand.

The man’s misadventure could be the biggest nightmare for arachnophobes. Which person with a deep-rooted fear of spiders has never had an unpleasant dream in which a little eight-legged beast climbs up to his body and attacks him?

For this 60-year-old man from Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, in the suburbs of Nancy, in Meurthe-et-Moselle department (eastern France), the dread has turned into reality, according to the newspaper L’Est républicain. The unfortunate man was sleeping peacefully when a tarantula climbed onto his hand to bite him.

Four operations and a skin graft

The bite didn’t wake him up, but the next morning the pain was unbearable. Worse, his arm and hand began to necrotize, forcing him to go to the hospital. There, the doctors’ diagnosis was staggering: the man could be amputated.

Fortunately, the professionals doubled their resourcefulness and skill to prevent him from losing his hand… Four operations and a skin graft later, the man can finally take a break, they save his hand. But the trauma will remain for a long time…

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What is this kind of spider?

What kind of spider can cause such damage? Actually, it is a Loxosceles reclusa or “brown recluse”, a species mainly found in the southern United States. This spider, which is just under a centimetre long, hides during the day and comes out at night in search of prey – hence its name. Its bites are dangerous, as its venom attacks veins and arteries directly.

Although its prevalence in France is very rare, we have already recorded similar cases of bites, mainly in the hot regions of France such as the South. The spider could have migrated northwards because of global warming, according to specialists.