Strange

Poisonous spider outbreak closes hospital

by Rob Peters | April 22, 2008 at 09:06 pm

2176 views | 0 Recommendations | 7 comments

Did they ever make Arachnophobia 2? If not here's a real-life movie script in the making.

SYDNEY, Australia - A tiny Australian hospital is closing temporarily because of an infestation of poisonous spiders.

The Baralaba Multi Purpose Health Service will close for 24 hours starting Thursday morning so officials can fumigate the building to get rid of redback spiders that have been found in large numbers in the main part of the hospital.

Three or four patients will need to be moved to another hospital while the building is closed, according to a statement from Queensland state health officials.

Redback spiders, common throughout most of the country, have a painful bite and a toxic venom, although an anti-venom is available.

The statement said warm weather had caused more redback spider eggs to hatch than usual.

"We believe the best way to deal with them, and the safest option for staff and patients, is to have the whole building fumigated so both the spiders and their eggs are killed," Ellen Palmer, rural director of nursing, said in the statement Wednesday.

Nearly 300 people live in Baralaba, about 320 kilometers (200 miles) northwest of Brisbane.

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scribbleclick

at 22:41 on April 22nd, 2008

The color photo with my tag is a reback spider which was living in aircon unit at side of my house in Bendigo, Central Victoria, Australia. The black and white shot was silhoutte of same spider, converted to black and white and flipped for artistic "effect". Full sequence of shots, including the full red back spider web structure, can be seen on my flickr stream. They are posted here because I received request from Rob Peters to use them, they have no connection with the actual story apart from being photos of a redback spider.

scribbleclick has contributed a photo to this story.

EÖnn

at 22:58 on April 22nd, 2008

Mum here had just finished devouring 'dad' with a view to making some more eggs I should think. Very large for a redback specimen and quite fast usually they are stilted this lady was in a hurry.

Found on my front porch just behind a small concrete statue.

EÖnn has contributed a photo to this story.

techdribble

at 04:00 on April 23rd, 2008

Redback spider I found living under some outdoor furniture. I moved her onto the ground to get this photo then released.

techdribble has contributed a photo to this story.

Jordan Yerman

at 05:23 on April 23rd, 2008

The Redback is related to the Black Widow, if you must know... watch out for that latrodectism.

waterstarr

at 05:41 on April 23rd, 2008

This spider was living on my father in law's rubbish bin just northeast of Melbourne. My in laws live in the bush where wildlife sightings are common, although this is the only Redback I had ever seen.

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scribbleclick

at 16:54 on April 23rd, 2008

"Rare complications include myocarditis, rhabdomyolysis, and death"

- I love this line about the symptoms of a red back bite from the E-medicine latrodectism link posted by Jordan. Not sure what myocarditis or rhabdomyolysis are, but death sounds like a "rare complication" indeed.

Incidentally, while I have spent much of my life in rural Australia where redbacks abound, I have never known anyone to be bitten.

Lobah

at 06:13 on April 28th, 2008

We caught this Redback in the house and decided to keep it in a box to observe it's way of life. We even provided a mate which she subsequently devoured after sex and she made 2 egg sacs after that. We released it into the forest nearby after 1 month

Lobah has contributed a photo to this story.