Spider Bite Causes Leg Amputation For Mother Of 3

A mother of three had to undergo leg amputation after being bitten by a brown reclusive spider in Arkansas a few days ago.

Kiara Boulton recently stepped out of the shower and noticed a bump on her foot from a spider bite. She went to a primary care physician who prescribed her medicines, however, nothing worked.

"I was seeing my little cousins off to prom and their dad was like, 'Why are you limping? What's going on?' So I showed him my foot and said 'I think I got bit by a spider.' And he's like, 'Well what kind do you think it is?' And I said, 'a brown recluse,'" she said, CBS-affiliated television station WREG reported.

Her toe turned black a few days later. Doctors informed her the infection had spread and her leg had to be amputated above the knee. She underwent seven surgeries after that.

"I don't want to be on pain meds for the rest of my life," she said. "I'm now on dialysis because of a spider bite."

Boulton has been diabetic since the age of 10.

"Three kids, Kiara, three, God wouldn't have let you have them if you weren't supposed to be here for them. Fight through this,” she said.

Boulton has several times asked the management of her apartment complex to spray to kill spiders but to no avail. She now started keeping the spiders she finds in a jar so they won’t bite anybody else in the family.

"If you're talking about any kind of lesion or any type of skin disruption in a diabetic, they have a much higher chance of amputations," said Dr. Donna Seger, Tennessee Poison Center medical director, said. “Amputations themselves happen in diabetics without any type of cut or lesion."

In June, a woman woke up to a couple of bumps on her chest and arm after she found nearly 50 brown recluse spiders in her apartment in Brentwood, Tennessee. She was rushed to the emergency room of a nearby hospital as she was unable to walk or move.

"They said I was forming bubbles in my lungs, which could have caused pneumonia, and they said if I would have waited a few more hours or maybe until the next morning if I would have made it, I would have had a stroke,” she said.

Neelendra Joshi, an assistant professor in the University Of Arkansas Department Of Entomology, said brown reclusive spiders are common, however, instances of bites being fatal are very rare since they are not as aggressive as other species, local daily KXLY reported.

"They have necrotic venom and as you see that's pretty poisonous and that can result in the premature death of blood cells," he said. "It's considered one of the most poisonous house spiders in the United States."