Woman hospitalized after being bitten by poisonous spider while kayaking

According to the statement, this woman was left hospitalized for a week in excruciating pain after being bitten by a brown recluse spider during a 10-hour kayaking trip. She was kayaking down a river that’s very familiar with having swam in it. The woman just felt a bite on her upper lip and didn’t think much of it at first and went home believing it was harmless.

Her name is Sherri Maddox was kayaking along the Staunton River in Virginia, making a few stops along the way. The next day, Sherri said there was no improvement and she decided to go to her local emergency center where she was given antibiotics.

Sherri said as time went on, and after taking antibiotics, it got worse.

“I cried. It was terrible. I thought I was going to die, you know, it was a lot of pain,” she said.

“I’m almost 50, and I’ve been floating in the Staunton River since I could swim, 6 years old,” she added. “I was just praying I wasn’t going to die because I hear horror stories and you look on the internet and see all this stuff.”

Two days after the bite, doctors determined that it was from a brown recluse spider. The brown recluse spider is one of the most dangerous spiders in the United States and its habitat extends from Nebraska to Ohio and across the south from Texas to Florida.

“I hallucinated a lot and thought it was because of the pain meds they gave me, but I heard from several different people that that’s what the spider venom does,” she added.

Eventually, the swelling went down and, even though she’s still on antibiotics, she is expected to make a full recovery.

Its venom destroys the walls of blood vessels near the site of the bite, sometimes causing a large skin ulcer, but deaths are said to be rare.