When Josh and Kristine Donovan noticed a bruise behind their daughter’s knee, they thought it was an ordinary bug bite — until the mark grew and 5-year-old Kailyn came down with a fever.
Doctors first told the Mendon, Mass., parents that it appeared to be a spider bite and prescribed antibiotics.
But when the girl’s condition did not improve, her parents sought answers from a pediatric infectious disease doctor at the UMass Memorial Medical Center.
The surprising and terrifying diagnosis: It was a bite from a black widow, one of the most venomous spiders in North America.
William Durbin, the specialist treating 5-year-old Kailyn, told the Boston Globe that the spider bite’s deep color signaled necrosis, or cell injury.
“She had a very distinctive bite, which was very scary for her parents and of course the doctors, too,” Durbin told the newspaper. He said, the child is in good health and will recover.
Kristine Donovan told the Globe she suspects the spider bit her daughter in their yard in Mendon, in southeast Massachusetts. “We haven’t gone anywhere, so it had to have probably been in our backyard,” she added.
Black widows, which have small, black bodies adorned with red hourglass icons, are found in the United States, mostly in the South and West, hidden in outdoor areas such as barns, sheds and woodpiles, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center. Black widow bites are rarely seen in New England, according to the Regional Center for Poison Control and Prevention, which serves Massachusetts.
The bites are described as a “pinprick,” though some people may not feel it at all. Symptoms include muscle cramps and muscle weakness; numbness, nausea and vomiting; trouble breathing; and seizures, according to the University of Maryland Medical Center.
People who suspect they have been bitten by a black widow spider are urged to seek immediate medical help.
