Three months later, Patrice Genet remains suspended from his medical appointments. Every two days, a nurse comes to the home of Saint-Nicolas-de-Port, at this sexagenarian bitten by a spider, in his bed, during his sleep, on the night of the 1stis to June 2.
Since then, this municipal officer in Varangéville, currently on sick leave, has been following the path of a slow and long recovery. And if he still wears an impressive bandage on his left hand, this father is aware of having avoided the amputation of his arm. The hypothesis was considered by the medical profession, fighting against the growing necrosis with antibiotics and surgical operations (four in total). But the situation was able to recover over the weeks.
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« Loxosceles »
At the home of the Genet couple, the phone has not stopped ringing in recent hours with calls from relatives. The unconscious collective fears conveyed by this spider of the kind of “loxosceles” remain alive. “There are a few species in France,” specifies Christine Tournoux, doctor at the Center for poison and toxicovigilance in Nancy. “They come from countries in the southern United States. If we sometimes find them in the South of the Hexagon or in other foreign countries, their presence in the East of France is rare. And the bites remain exceptional. The venom that the animal is likely to diffuse can produce local necrosis with cell death in places. We can see pain, edema, but which usually pass after a few days. A subsequent deterioration of the state of health only occurs very rarely, and is to be compared with a probable deficiency of the immune system ”. Municipal employee working in green spaces in Varangéville, Patrice Genet has made no secret of his allergy to insect bites. A few years earlier, he had been desensitized to wasp stings.
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“The spider does not attack”
Precision required, recalled by Dr Tournoux, “the spider does not attack”. “It is even the object of demonization while physical contact with human beings is extremely rare,” adds Christine Collard, specialist at the Museum of Natural History in Paris. The expert even displays extreme caution when faced with diagnoses too quickly advanced by doctors. “It is an insect one centimeter long without the legs, which, if it diffuses venom, does so only in infinitesimal quantities. We hear about thousands of spider bites every year. There are very few proven cases. We must not forget, too, the mites. “
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