A 31 year old Peruvian student named Orlando Andrés Jiménez has got to be one of the most unlucky people in the world after he was bitten by a Chilean recluse spider in the bathroom of his college in the town of Punta de Bombón on the coast of Peru. The spider simply fell from the ceiling and took a bite out of him, injecting him with its poison the effect of which might quite simply end his life.
Jimenez became drastically ill less than half an hour after the bite and since then his kidneys have failed and he’s currently receiving dialysis treatment. The venom also causes neurosis of the skin which means that even if he survives, he might lose his eyelids and his left ear.
His family have set up a fundraising page to help with his medical bills – it costs about £140 a session for dialysis treatment – but it’s not clear whether or not this will be enough to keep him alive for a sustained period of time. There’s also the worry of the damage that the venom will do to his livelihood longterm with his skin being the big loser in this department. Like I said, he’s got to be one of the unluckiest guys out there.
Images VIA
Even more of a mystery is how the Chilean recluse spider came to be found in the college in Peru – it’s native to the continent of South America of course but normally found in Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Argentina and Uruguay rather than Peru. Nobody knows how it ended up in Peru, which makes Orlando’s luck even worse really.
Just in case you ever run into one of these critters and don’t run a mile just because it’s a huge fuck off spider, you can tell it’s a Chilean recluse spider – and that you actually do need to run a mile – by the fact it has a black marking down its back pointing to its rear which apparently resembles a violin. They’re also aptly known as violin spiders and have eight eyes instead of six which is pretty unusual amongst spiders apparently. Creepy.
If you want to see the horrific extent of Orlando’s injuries click on to the next page, but be warned they are completely and utterly NSFL and can never be unseen.
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