The UK Cypriot teenager who had to have a chunk of her hand cut out after a venomous spider bit her as she watched a horror film had her skin graft on Saturday and as you can see from the photo she now is recovering in hospital.
Stephanie Georgiou, 18, was nipped by a suspected false widow spider at her local Enfield Cineworld cinema on Thursday January the 2nd 2014. Parikiaki spoke to Stephanie’s mother Yiota who told us that as soon as Stephanie sat down to see the film she laid her hand on the arm rest then she felt a sudden sharp pain like an electric shock. Afterwards she felt dizzy , hot then shivery. The bite became sore and swollen and a Cyst appeared that grew bigger and bigger.
Stephanie needed an operation to cut out the poison. Four days later after her condition worsened , she had another to halt the infection and is due to have a skin graft tomorrow.
Stephanie is born in London her Grandparents from Famagusta, Larnaca and Petra Solea.
The Childcare student said its so upsetting I have a hole in my hand.
Cineworld have since contacted Stephanie’s family and have said they are very sorry and will take this matter seriously.
There has also been another recent case in which a woman says she has been left sleeping on her sofa after being bitten by a false widow spider. Alison Blackburn, from Strood in Kent, said she had been too terrified to go into the room where she was bitten, on 10 January.
She needed hospital treatment to drain the venom from her left foot.
No-one is reported to have died from a false widow bite in the UK, but victims report chest pains, tingling sensations and swelling.
The spider that bit her is a false widow spider
The false widow spider (steatoda nobilis) is the most dangerous of the 12 species of biting spider known in Britain.
It is thought to have arrived in Britain in crates of fruit from the Canary Islands in the late 19th Century, with the first reported sighting in Torquay in 1879.
The spider, which is about the size of a 50p piece, belongs to the same family as the black widow, although it is nowhere near as toxic.
Experts say they are on the increase, as existing populations expand.
The severity of symptoms depends on the amount of venom injected but can include severe swelling, chest pains and tingling of fingers
False widow spiders arrived in south-west England in the 1870s
It is Britain’s most venomous spider, although there are no reported deaths from its bite in the UK
The spider has distinctive cream markings on its bulbous body and is brown with reddish-orangey legs
It eats insects, invertebrates and even other spiders
It prefers warm, dark places
The UK has about 650 species of spider and of these only about a dozen are capable of biting humans
