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<\/p>\nA former Royal Marine has had a finger amputated, 13 years after being bitten by a black widow spider.<\/p>\n
Plymstock resident Dan Cheetham, 41, suffered the venomous bite on his right hand in 2012 while in the middle of the Mojave Desert in California during a training exercise.<\/p>\n
Mr Cheetham, originally from Wrexham, said he was taken to hospital via a 14-minute helicopter ride at the time of the incident, where he was treated with antibiotics and anti-venom.<\/p>\n
He said two small puncture wounds were visible at the bottom of his ring finger for about seven-years and, in November 2025, his little finger was removed after the joints “got lazy” and it was of “no use” to him anymore.<\/p>\n
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He said it was like a “comedy sketch” when he tried to put a right-hand glove on [Getty Images]<\/p>\n
Mr Cheetham did not know he had been bitten at the time, but instead thought he slept awkwardly on his arm as it felt “dead”.<\/p>\n
“Turns out that I’d been bitten by a black widow on my right ring finger,” he said.<\/p>\n
He said medics applied a tourniquet as they realised venom was heading up his arm toward his shoulder.<\/p>\n
“Because of the tracking, the blood was starting to congeal, it was almost like plasticine,” he said.<\/p>\n
“I had IV drips coming out of every vein in the arm.”<\/p>\n
He added: “All I could taste was Fairy Liquid I can remember that, that was a mixture of antibiotics and anti-venom.”<\/p>\n
Mr Cheetham said steps were being taken in 2024 to save both fingers which were affected by the bite.<\/p>\n
“I always knew there was an issue as it got to a point where the nerves had deteriorated that much,” he added.<\/p>\n
“I sort of disowned it from part of my body…it was almost like a comedy sketch putting the right glove on.”<\/p>\n
He said his discharge notes from the Royal Marines made for an “an interesting read”.<\/p>\n
“You’d expect mortar bombs and, you know, and anything else that we experience and yeah we’ve got a Californian black widow,” he added.<\/p>\n
Mr Cheetham said he did not carry a fear of spiders, but added “the bigger ones are the easy ones, it’s the ones that you can’t see are the issue”.<\/p>\n
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