About a month ago I was mowing the lawn & had to brush past a bush with my hand on the blade clutch lever.
Two days later two little bite like spots appeared on my hand which I put down to an insect bite & thought no more about it until they grew bigger & redder with the result shown here.
Dunno what caused it but assume it was a spider.
It's just about cleared up now having lost several layers of skin.
It was the one time I forgot to wear gloves & shan't be making that mistake again.
Mowing can be dangerous
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L Austin France
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Mowing can be dangerous
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Blaze
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Mowing can be dangerous
Yes, LAF, there are spiders that can give you a nasty bite. Spider bites generally leave 2 puncture marks and the swelling and redness can vary according to who and where they are bitten.
This little beauty, a False Widow spider, (Steatoda nobilis) doesn't like to be disturbed. I took this photo in our downstairs loo where she nests. She's about 1 cm total length.
This little beauty, a False Widow spider, (Steatoda nobilis) doesn't like to be disturbed. I took this photo in our downstairs loo where she nests. She's about 1 cm total length.
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niemeyjt
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Lori
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Mowing can be dangerous
Good Lord LAF !! That looks horrific !!!
You really should see a doctor as if it is a False Widow bite, it can be very serious. Don't know if there are Brown Recluse spiders in France, but they too can cause serious infections.
Must be terribly painful. The left side of the photo looks like two fang marks that have grown apart as the swelling grew. The right side almost looks like the infamous 'bulls eye' mark.
Get thee to a doctor or at least a pharmacist !
You really should see a doctor as if it is a False Widow bite, it can be very serious. Don't know if there are Brown Recluse spiders in France, but they too can cause serious infections.
Must be terribly painful. The left side of the photo looks like two fang marks that have grown apart as the swelling grew. The right side almost looks like the infamous 'bulls eye' mark.
Get thee to a doctor or at least a pharmacist !
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L Austin France
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Mowing can be dangerous
Nah! Even this mug knows not to run yer hand through a blackthorn bush.
Apparently it was a Rododendron.
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L Austin France
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Mowing can be dangerous
Thanks for your concern Lori but all's fine now & apart from a bit of fraying around the edges of the two wounds you'd never know it was once so red & swollen. Sudocrem sorted it out in short order once I remembered we had some a few days ago & today the swelling has almost completely gone & the colour is pretty much back to normal.Lori wrote: ↑Thu Jul 27, 2023 3:53 pm Good Lord LAF !! That looks horrific !!!
You really should see a doctor as if it is a False Widow bite, it can be very serious. Don't know if there are Brown Recluse spiders in France, but they too can cause serious infections.
Must be terribly painful. The left side of the photo looks like two fang marks that have grown apart as the swelling grew. The right side almost looks like the infamous 'bulls eye' mark.
Get thee to a doctor or at least a pharmacist !
I had showed it to our local pharmacist about 2 weeks ago when it was in it's 'mid phase' & they didn't make much of it apart from the odd giggle when I told them how it happened.
I've a three monthly control rdv with out MT on the 3rd Aug when I'll ask if I should have visited earlier but, quite frankly, apart from the obvious symptoms it wasn't a great problem, not really painfull,apart from when I knocked it, & at no time did I feel it warranted taking somebody elses difficult to get, doctors appointment.
I reckon another week & it'll be just a memory but in the meantime it's given me a good excuse to avoid any hard & dirty work.
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Lori
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Mowing can be dangerous
Glad it's better as it could have gone the other way.
Looked pretty bad to me.
Looked pretty bad to me.
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Hotrodder
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Mowing can be dangerous
Maybe not serious but worrying nonetheless. Be careful out there people. Its dangerous out there once you stray far from your PC.
A neighbour of mine was mowing between a row of trees when he encountered some brambles that had grown across his way. He assumed his ride-on would just plough through it and carry on. The bramble slipped up and over the bonnet of the mower and caught him across the chest. That pushed him backward and his foot slipped off the disengagement clutch so it carried on and flipped over backwards and landed on top of him. Engine and blade still active. He suffered a broken shoulder, a couple of fractured ribs, and some nasty gashes from the blade.
On the plus side......he hired me to do his mowing for a couple of months until he was fit enough to it again himself.
A neighbour of mine was mowing between a row of trees when he encountered some brambles that had grown across his way. He assumed his ride-on would just plough through it and carry on. The bramble slipped up and over the bonnet of the mower and caught him across the chest. That pushed him backward and his foot slipped off the disengagement clutch so it carried on and flipped over backwards and landed on top of him. Engine and blade still active. He suffered a broken shoulder, a couple of fractured ribs, and some nasty gashes from the blade.
On the plus side......he hired me to do his mowing for a couple of months until he was fit enough to it again himself.
Humanity landed on the moon over fifty years ago but it seems too much to ask for a reliable telephone/internet service in rural France.
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Bayleaf
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Mowing can be dangerous
I'm not sure how that can even happen, unless security sensors had been removed?
My dangerous mowing yesterday was (thankfully) just ten minutes with a walk-a-long doing a top strip of garden behind some clients' bungalow. Usually not a problem, but yesterday the tension was increased by not only one hornet's nest at one end of the bungalow, but another one forming at the other end! I couldn't leave the mowing as I'm on holiday for a week or so (yay!), so started up the mower nearby and watched to see if there was a reaction from either nest. Nothing. I know they don't like noise, and they can also smell fear - so, deep breaths and keeping my mouth firmly shut (as apparently they can smell fear on your saliva!), I managed the walk of potential death, keeping a close eye on them.
They were too busy tending their nests, but unfortunately for them we did organise an exterminator who arrived later in the day to deal with them. They were just far too close to the home of these elderly, particularly frail clients.
My dangerous mowing yesterday was (thankfully) just ten minutes with a walk-a-long doing a top strip of garden behind some clients' bungalow. Usually not a problem, but yesterday the tension was increased by not only one hornet's nest at one end of the bungalow, but another one forming at the other end! I couldn't leave the mowing as I'm on holiday for a week or so (yay!), so started up the mower nearby and watched to see if there was a reaction from either nest. Nothing. I know they don't like noise, and they can also smell fear - so, deep breaths and keeping my mouth firmly shut (as apparently they can smell fear on your saliva!), I managed the walk of potential death, keeping a close eye on them.
They were too busy tending their nests, but unfortunately for them we did organise an exterminator who arrived later in the day to deal with them. They were just far too close to the home of these elderly, particularly frail clients.