Ollie Kay, 19, from Hornsby, woke up one warm February night with a burning pain in his forearm.
She pulled back the sheets and saw a large, hairy black spider crawling on her bed.
His quick-thinking girlfriend filmed the arachnid, and a Google search confirmed his worst nightmare.
It was a male funnel-web spider, which is capable of killing an adult in less than 90 minutes.
A terrifying set of symptoms emerged in a matter of minutes: sweating, nausea, palpitations, and dizziness.
“The symptoms started showing up when we were trying to decide what to do,” Kay said.
“I started shaking, sweating a lot.
“That’s when we decided to go to the hospital.”
Doctors took no chances when Kay arrived at the ER and was administered two vials of an antivenom that saved her life.
But the teen wasn’t out of the woods yet.
His heart’s troponin levels reached an alarming level, prompting calls for urgent resuscitation should a heart attack occur.
Kay was in the hospital for three days to be monitored and was thankfully cleared of a cardiac event.
“They did a lot of heart scans to make sure there was no damage to the heart,” Kay said.
“The panic came later when we realized how serious it was and what could have happened if we had been there 10 or 15 minutes later,” he said.
“So that’s when, as a parent, you think, wow, that was pretty close.”
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Teen Meets Those Who Helped Save Lives
Just a month after the bite, the teenager toured the Australian Reptile Park on the south coast of New South Wales and met the team helping to produce the antidote.
The facility is the only place in the world where funnel nets are milked for venom, which is used to produce antivenom.
Operations manager Billy Collett said meeting Kay was one of the highlights of his career.
There has not been a fatal spider bite in Australia since 1981, when the park’s spider venom program was launched.
“It was incredibly rewarding for the team to meet a survivor of a funnel-web spider bite, to be able to shake hands with someone who is still here today because of the work we do,” he said.
“The team spends an incredible number of hours on our spider venom milking program.
“To get enough pure venom for one vial of antivenom, we need to milk 150 spiders.
“It motivates us to keep doing what we do every day.”
Collett said Kay’s story shows how important it is to know the correct first aid for funnel-web spider bites.
“Even if you’re not sure what type of spider has bitten you, it’s crucial that you treat it as life-threatening and seek urgent medical attention or call triple zero,” he said.
“Ollie’s story is a reminder of how serious a funnel-web spider bite can be.”
Applying a pressure immobilization bandage is also recommended in case a funnel web bite is suspected, if one is available.