False widow spider bite gave Clacton granddad sepsis

Shawn Summerfield, from Clacton, had mentally prepared to lose his right leg after purple blotches turned into horrendous, oozing blisters and a chunk of his calf began changing colour.

He spent eight days in Colchester General Hospital back in March being incorrectly treated for a flesh-eating disease.

The grandfather, 55, said: “If there’s a God I was praying to him – that’s what my response was. I was in the hands of doctors and the gods. It was scary.

“They kept asking me if I’d been bitten by an insect but I told them no, as I didn’t feel any bites.

“It was only after they’d admitted me and I was in a high observation ward that a student nurse showed me an article from the Daily Mirror on her phone of an old boy who had been in hospital for weeks before he was diagnosed.

“She said ‘That’s exactly what your leg looks like.’

“Once I showed the doctor, they changed my antibiotics and I began to get better.

“If it wasn’t for the internet and mobiles phones, I would’ve died, there was no doubt about it.”

Shawn’s antibiotics were nicknamed ‘Domestos’ and were so strong he could taste them.

“When they were being injected intravenously I could taste the stuff and feel it gurgling in my tummy,” he said.

Shawn was unable to eat for three days but started seeing improvements to his leg after about day five.

The deep sepsis was clearing but Shawn had no idea the infection had affected his breathing too so he needed an oxygen mask.

He said: “I can remember a doctor saying ‘85 per cent’ and I thought, that’s a lot of oxygen.

“They would tell me I never looked well but I felt fine. Then I remember one saying, ‘Oh, you’re breathing better today,’ but I didn’t even realise my breathing was being affected.

“The infection was starting to kill me, I think.

“My children would visit and, of course, they were putting on a brave face but God knows what they were thinking on the way home.

“It was horrible. It was like I was being mummified. My leg was going crispy.

“I was completely immobile and after being released from hospital, I couldn’t walk for a couple weeks.”

Shawn, of WK Plastering, thinks he was bitten while building a partition in one of his son’s sheds in Hatfield Peverel.

He recalls taking his shoes off a few times then his toe felt itchy.

“That was on a Wednesday and the next morning it felt like I had cramp, but all over my leg,” he explained.

“On Sunday I woke up and had purple blotches. By the time I got from Clacton to Colchester there was a big blister.”

Now Shawn is back under the care of his GP, who is investigating the swelling of his affected leg which has a large pigmented scar.

The physical injuries have nearly all healed but the experience has traumatised Shawn to the point that he spider-proofs his home almost daily.

This grandfather-of-14 is no longer the man everyone calls to kill spiders.

He said: “I spray everything – I’m like spider-killer man now.

“People tell me about leaving conkers on the windowsill but I’m not messing around with conkers, I just spray the spiders and bugs, hoover cobwebs, nooks and crannies – everywhere.

“My son is terrible, he says there’s a spider on me just for a laugh.”

He added: “I’m always on the lookout for spiders. At the moment I’ve got a motorbike in the garden but there are spider webs all over so I won’t go nowhere near it.

“I’ll get one of my sons to clean it for me.”

A false widow spider

Although he is now petrified of creepy-crawlies, he has learnt some valuable life lessons through it all.

“Don’t take anything for granted and be careful,” he said.

“I’d never have thought I’d have got bitten by a spider and that would happen.

“If I was in a jungle somewhere then yes, but I was in a shed in Essex.”