10-Year-Old Aussie Legend Bitten By World’s Deadliest Spider

When Americans think of Australia, one of the most prominent thoughts to come to their heads is generally along the lines of, “How do they survive down there with all those deadly plants and animals?” Well the answer is really quite simple, modern medicine. Yeah, it’s really that easy.

Take this 10-year-old boy for example; Matthew Mitchell was outside with his dad on their property in Berkeley Vale this past Monday night when he grabbed his sand shoe and noticed something was a little off pretty quickly.

The legs of the deadliest spider in the world, the funnel-web spider, wrapped around one of his fingers and wouldn’t let go.

Whipping his hand out of the shoe the spider bit him, prompting a yelp which got his father David’s attention. Mr. Mitchell noticed the spider flying off and managed to not only identify it, but capture it as well – which is a fairly important note for later in the story – and knowing that the funnel-web venom can kill someone in just 15 minutes rushed his son off to the hospital.

David, his wife Shellie, 17-year-old daughter Natasha and Matthew first rushed to their local clinic, which for some reason happened to be closed that day. Knowing there wasn’t a whole lot of time to sit around they immediately began heading towards Killarney Vale where the after-hours chemist was. Upon arriving the staff immediate tore off Matthews shirt to use it as a compression bandage, and Natasha dialed 000. By this point the poor boy’s entire arm was tingling.

Emergency services didn’t arrive until 6pm that night and rushed him over to Gosford Hospital, but his health was rapidly declining.

His eyes were dilated, froth began forming around his mouth and he was sweating profusely. Eventually the seizures kicked in and doctors were forced to act a little unconventionally. Matthew was administered 12 vials of funnel-web antivenom, the most anyone has ever received in Australian history. Matthew, at just 10-years-old, pulled off a miraculous recovery.

The family is very thankful to the medical staff who helped bring their little boy back to them of course, but I hope they realize they’re now raising an Aussie legend. I mean, not only did he survive through the deadliest spider bite in the world, he was given the single largest dose of antivenom in history and THAT is how he pulled through.

To all of our American visitors, that’s basically as badass as Crocodile Dundee is to you!