Belding teen bitten by black widow spider

BELDING, Mich (Greenville Daily News) - Brad Gregory enjoys helping his grandparents, but he'll think twice before assisting them with unloading another box.

On Sept. 7, the Belding 17-year-old was helping his grandfather unpack a new Maytag dishwasher that his grandparents had purchased at Home Depot two weeks earlier for their home in rural Montcalm Township when he noticed a large, black spider drop to the ground.

Being allergic to common brown spiders, Gregory jumped back. Little did he know the spider was not an ordinary species found in Michigan and it already had bitten his right forearm.

"You don't feel the bite at all," Gregory said.

Closer investigation revealed that a black widow, which is highly venomous and extremely rare in Michigan, had woven a small web in the box's corner and climbed into the back of the dishwasher near the wiring.

Black widows Gregory's grandmother found two other live black widows crawling inside the box and the partial remains of a fourth spider.

They also found a nest filled with spider eggs.

They believe the spiders got into the box when the dishwasher was packaged at Maytag's factory in Mexico and traveled to Michigan as stowaways.

Gregory's grandmother, Margaret Gregory, killed the three live spiders and saved the remains of the largest one that bid her grandson. Brad Gregory, who still didn't know he'd been bitten, studied their abdomens for the telltale double red diamond markings identifying them as black widows.

"I didn't know I was bit until 25 minutes later," he said. "I was throwing up and feeling really crampy. I saw two puncture holes."

Gregory's girlfriend looked up the symptoms of black widow bites and they closely matched what he was feeling.

"She was reading off how I was feeling," Gregory said.

Blodgett and MSU

Realizing that he had received a bite and knowing that the situation was serious, Gregory's family whisked him to Spectrum Health System's Blodgett Hospital in East Grand Rapids.

They took along the spider, which Gregory estimated was the size of a quarter, to prove that it was a black widow.

Doctors at Blodgett never had seen a black widow bite before so they called toxicologists and experts at Michigan State University. All agreed the best course of treatment was to administer an antivenin. Blodgett happened to have just one dose on hand.

Gregory received a drop of antivenin in each eye and a skin-prick test on his arm to make sure he wasn't allergic to the medication.

Then he was admitted to Blodgett and moved to a room where he felt like the "coolest guy in the hospital."

"I had everybody and their brother coming to check me out," Gregory said. "I had one doctor look and say, 'Huh, cool,' and then just walk out."

His mother, Tracy Sterba of Belding, said her son even used his newfound celebrity to scare some of the nurses with the dead spider that he kept in his room.

"He took it out to show them," she said. "But some of them had spider phobia."

After-effects

Gregory stayed at Blodgett for about a week receiving large doses of pain medication to combat the agony that black widow bites cause.

He said the venom, which can be fatal for infants and the elderly, irritates the nervous system, primarily in his chest and abdomen, tricking his brain into thinking his nerves are triggering pain signals.

"The venom attacks my nervous system so my body reacts and makes pain come from my abdomen," said Gregory, who is still groggy from taking pain medication every day. "My abs and my lower back will seize up and it feels like someone is kicking me in the sides. I get bad headaches too. But I could have had tremors, extreme vomiting and stuff like that."

He also has to take a calcium supplement, because the venom breaks that down in his body, and has trouble with car sickness so he can't travel much.

The doctors told Gregory the pain should have started subsiding last week, but he said it hasn't let up much.

"It feels like it's going to be a while," Gregory said. "I'm going to be in pain for quite some time."

Back to his grandparents' Gregory is living at his grandparents' house while he recuperates.

"I figure it's the least I can do because I had him come here to help with the dishwasher," Margaret Gregory said.

Eventually the venom will degrade and not cause as much pain, but it still will be in Brad Gregory's body so the severe pains could return.

"You wouldn't think a little critter could do so much but it really kicked your butt," Margaret Gregory quipped to her grandson. "You just have to be patient. It will get better."

One of only 1 or 2

Gregory's experience is unique for Michigan.

The state is home to the northern black widow, which is a less venomous variety than the southern black widow, more commonly found in arid climates like America's Southwest.

It was a more venomous southern black widow that attacked Gregory.

Doug Reeves, assistant chief of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources' Wildlife Division, said he's seen about seven northern black widows, "usually when I'm digging around woodpiles."

"They're not particularly rare but they're not something that's found, unless you look in the right habitat," Reeves said.

Doctors told Gregory that his was one of only one or two southern black widow bites ever recorded in Michigan.

"They told him he would have a much better chance of winning the lottery," Margaret Gregory said.

Reeves said he'd never before heard of a southern black widow bite in the state. However, Reeves said he's heard of other cases where non-native spiders and snakes have come into the state through international shipments, as was the case with Brad Gregory and his southern black widow.