Victim Recounts Experience of Being Bitten by Brown Recluse Spider

A Georgia mother is recovering from a spider bite which left her with horrific, potentially permanent injuries. 44-year-old Jessica Rogue recounted to Atlanta News First what it’s really like to be bitten by a pack of highly venomous brown recluse spiders.

On July 1, Rogue was cleaning out a cluttered garden shed when she unknowingly wandered into a web housing several brown recluse spiders. “I was just in there sweeping, I immediately felt something on my face next to my eye. I felt I got bit,” she told the outlet.

“There were spiders on me, where I was it was a really messy web, and I was trying to clean that up,” Rogue recalled.

While she initially brushed the bites off as nothing extraordinary, the mother of three young children soon found her face, throat, and arms completely swollen. Her arms and feet also experienced numbness and loss of mobility. Less than 24 hours later, she had to be rushed to the hospital.

“This is escalating, this is getting worse. I really didn’t know for sure,” Rogue recalled thinking. “I’ve been bitten by spiders so many times…there’s no way it could have done that to me. A brown recluse can do these things to do.”

Pest control is handling the spider issue while Rogue stays at a friend’s home.

An update on Rogue’s condition on a GoFundMe page in her name explained that after being released from the hospital she began experiencing intense blistering and an “itchy, painful rash” on the areas in which she’d been bitten. She's also experiencing persistent pain in her right eye which requires her to wear a patch. She’s unsure if the eye injury will be permanent.

“My eye is what I’m really worried about. My eye is…I’m having a lot of pain. I just don’t know what’s going to happen with my eye,” Rogue said.

Still, even with the possibility of permanent injuries, Rogue feels tremendously lucky that she survived the brown recluse bites. They are one of the most venomous spiders in the country. “Some people don’t end up being as lucky as I am,” Rogue admitted.