Woman Goes to Doctor for Ear 'Plugged with Water,' Finds Poisonous Spider Living Inside
A Missouri woman had a problem with one ear that she thought was just a routine case of water in her left ear.
Nope. A little creepy-crawly friend had found a cozy home there.
“I woke up Tuesday hearing a bunch of swooshing and water in my left ear. It was like when you went swimming and you have all of that water in your ear,” Kansas City, Missouri, resident Susie Torres said, according to WDAF-TV.
Very routine.
A medical assistant checked, and the reaction was not at all routine.
“She ran out and said I’m going to get a couple more people,” Torres said, KSHB reported.
Doctors pull venomous brown recluse spider from woman’s ear https://t.co/PcjjxXwzID pic.twitter.com/iJa0RxLDVS
— New York Post (@nypost) August 23, 2019
When she returned, she had news that Torres, who hates spiders, did not want to hear.
“She then said, ‘I think you have an insect in there,'” Torres said.
“She came back in and told me it was a spider. They had a few tools and worked their magic and got it out.”
Torres admitted that the magic didn’t work quite that easily.
“Seeing the instruments they were going to put in my ear started to make me panic,” she said.
At first, her ear was flushed with water. No luck. Then finally a doctor went in after the spider and pulled it out in one piece.
“The nurses said it was dead, but they might’ve just said that so I wouldn’t freak out,” she said, according to CNN.
Although the bug was a highly venomous brown recluse spider, it never bit Torres. However, Torres was not in the mood to feel lucky.
“I never thought they would crawl in your ear or any part of your body,” Torres said.
She remains mystified as to how the spider crawled into her ear.
“Gross. Why, where, what and how,” she said.
However, she is taking precautions.
“I went and put some cotton balls in my ears last night. I`m shaking off my clothes, and I don`t put my purse on the floor. I’m a little more cautious,” she said. “I’m pretty terrified of spiders.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that a bite from a brown recluse can cause itching, muscle pain, increased sweating, headaches, nausea and/or a fever.
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
