I was bitten by deadly Brazilian wandering spider that causes erections – I thought I’d die & ‘symptom’ lasted two days
A MAN has revealed he had a two-day erection after being bitten by a deadly spider.
Ronald was carrying out an electrical job when he was met by a Brazilian wandering spider – one of the most venomous arachnids on the planet.
The Peruvian had the horror encounter last year at one of his client’s country house in Santa Cruz.
The animal, known in Peru as “the banana tree spider” is not only very common in that region, but is also feared by locals as their bites can sometimes be fatal.
After being bitten by one of the grisly creatures, victims will often suffer from hypothermia, blurred vision, convulsions, and in some cases, erections.
The spider’s venom is even being studied for use in erectile dysfunction treatments after it was found that a bite from one of the spiders can give male victims a painful four-hour erection.
“I was in the middle of screwing a light bulb and placed my hand into the wood on the ceiling,” he told American biologist Clint Laidlaw.
“I didn’t notice the spider there because I was focused on my job.
“So I carried on working when all of a sudden I felt two pinching sensations on my middle fingertip. One on either side.
“I immediately felt quite a bit of pain, and the other guys working with me started laughing because they thought I was just joking.”
“The moment I pulled my hand back, the spider was still very much clasped onto my finger.”
“When I shook it off of me and it fell on the floor, that’s when we all realised it was an extremely venomous spider.”
Clint explained how Brazilian wanderers have got pincer-style fangs instead of the parallel fangs one would see in a Tarantula, for example.
That way they’re able to pinch all the way around someone’s finger.
Ronald described how symptoms started to kick in just moments after the bite.
Within 20 minutes, his finger and hand started swelling up, and soon enough his veins were becoming more visible up his arm.
“I suddenly started having cold sweats and I felt like my heart would pound off my chest because it was racing so fast,” Ronald recalls.
“I then felt my entire body feeling weaker and weaker, slowly losing my ability to walk.”
Ronald was rushed by boat to a hospital in the nearby district of Mazán, and later transferred to another in Iquitos.
The worker is part of a vaccine study, and in order not to compromise the tests, Ronald said he could only be treated with very specific medication.
On the way to the hospital, Ronald remembers feeling his entire body sweating and trembling.
“I also began feeling the erection side-effect,” he recalled.
“It just stayed that way for two full days.
“Only by the third day it started going back to normal.
“Doctors then prescribed me with a five-day treatment with vaccines, pills, you name it.
“Luckily it all went away, but my arm was still numb the entire following week and I couldn’t move my finger for a full month.
“Everything was so unbearably painful, that’s why I always tell people now to be extremely careful with these spiders.”
The South American spider was also found all the way across the ocean at a supermarket in Austria.
The premises got evacuated after the four-inch black and red arachnid was spotted among bunches of bananas.