Weird But True

Tourist loses chunk of flesh from foot after spider bite in Las Vegas

A British tourist had to have a huge chunk of rotten flesh cut out of his foot after getting bitten by a spider on a trip to Las Vegas.

Actor Matthew Phillips, 44, did not even realize he had been bitten during his boys’ trip in June because of nerve damage from type 2 diabetes, he told the Manchester Evening News.

But once back home in Manchester he noticed a “little red dot” on his right foot — and finally went to Salford Royal Hospital when it got “blacker and blacker and more and more swollen,” he told the local paper.

To save the foot, he had surgery cutting out a golf-ball-sized chunk of infected flesh — without needing anesthetic because his foot was completely numb.

“They cut away all the dead flesh and dead tissue and it was revolting. It was the most gruesome thing I have ever seen,” he told the paper as he showed of the hideous wound.

Doctors told him it was probably a brown recluse spider, which is only about 3/4 of an inch but has potent, necrotic venom.

He has been warned that maintaining clean dressings and avoiding fresh infections is vital if he is to save the foot — with his two kids recoiling in horror when they see the wound.

“When I’m re-dressing it, they can’t stand it. They both start having to walk out of the room”, he said.

Phillips still has some poison in his system and struggles to walk, and partly blames himself for getting type 2 diabetes and the nerve damage that stopped him feeling the initial pain and also being vulnerable to infections.

“I hold my hand up. If I wouldn’t have neglected myself in the past this would not be like this,” Phillips, who was 280 pounds at 19, told the paper. “It’s my fault what I had done in the past.”