ARUN RATH, HOST:
Nature writer Jackson Landers takes a lot of risks in the wild. He's ended up in the emergency room a bunch of times. Most recently, he found himself in the hospital after a run-in with a black widow spider living on his front porch.
JACKSON LANDERS: When I finally got bitten, I really should've known better. I knew that they were there on that front porch, and I had left a pair of water shoes, like aqua socks on the front porch. I'd been writing all day, and I decided to go catch dinner. And so I grabbed the shoes and a cast net and some - a fishing pole. And I drove about five miles to the fishing spot, got out of the car, and I put the shoes on. I took a few steps, and I felt a stinging sensation.
And at first, I thought maybe it was - I had a thorn or something in the shoe. And then it got worse. Then it felt like an insect bite. It felt like a bee sting or something. I took the shoe off. I saw two tiny little pinpricks, and I knew it wasn't a bee sting. It was - something had bitten me. I was sort of in denial about what was happening. I walked down to the water, and I went fishing. And I caught three catfish. And as I was fishing, the pain got worse and worse.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LANDERS: I felt this warmth in my abdomen, and the warmth turned into a tightness. And then the tightness turned into pain, and it was like being punched in the stomach. And that was when I knew that I had to get out of there while I was still able to drive. The venom is a - it's a neurotoxin. It causes muscle spasms and contractions. And by the time I got into the parking lot in the ER, it was like a vise grabbing my abdomen.
This doctor, this toxicologist sat down and talked to me for a while, and he said, you know, listen, we're doing this study with an experimental antivenin. Would you be willing to test it? And I said, what's your track record? He said, well, you'd be the fourth person to volunteer. I said, what happened with the last ones? He said, well, I think two of them got the placebo.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
LANDERS: When they finally put this substance into my IV, there were, I think, 14 or 15 people in the room. It was this moment of incredible tension. And I felt something. It was almost a high. It was this incredible, magical warmth that spread through my arm. And I could feel it spreading, you know, through my arm and through my chest. And it was a wave of relief as pain was erased literally with every heartbeat pushing a little bit farther. And within 10 minutes, I was completely recovered. I felt fine.
And they were able to discharge me just a few hours later. So it was the first time they'd seen a black widow bite that didn't need to be admitted. I was discharged at 3 a.m., and I went home, and I collapsed into bed. And I woke up at some point the next day and went downstairs to make a cup of coffee. And I saw a spider crawling on the floor. And right there was a male black widow. And I took a few pictures of it, and then that guy had to go.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
RATH: Jackson Landers has moved out of the spider-infested house, but he says whenever he sees a messy web close to the ground, he can't help but stop and stare.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
Copyright © 2013 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.