A DORSET woman nearly lost one of her hands after being bitten by the UK’s most dangerous spider.

Catherine Coombs, 48, was bitten by a false widow spider as she lay sleeping in bed at her Lytchett Matravers home and woke up with an serious pain in her hand.

It soon swelled up dramatically and surgeons at Poole Hospital, who operated three times to remove the decaying flesh, warned Catherine she could lose it completely.

Catherine, who has to wait for the infection to die down to have tendons re-built in her hand, said: “For the first week I felt very poorly and had a very high temperature, and felt like I had a really bad case of the flu.

“The pain in my hand was so awful and they operated three times in seven or eight days.

“Every time the surgeons went in they found more and more decay. They just kept taking away the dead flesh.”

Back in February, Catherine’s GP thought it was an ordinary insect bite, but her extreme symptoms and the fang markings point to the venomous culprit.

She’s spent most of the last six weeks in hospital as medical staff battled to fight the infection and stop the poison, which seemed to be ‘tracking’ up her arm.

An inflamed patch on one of her legs sparked fears it had spread via her heart.

“For a while the doctors were worried that I may lose the hand completely and I had to sign for amputation every time I went under,” Catherine, a former medical photographer, said.

“They found a lot of necrotised flesh. Every time I woke, I made sure my hand was still there.

“At the time I was so poorly I’d have done anything to get better.”

The spiders, which only bite when they feel threatened or pinched, can get inside homes when people dry bed sheets outside.

Catherine thinks she rolled on the spider.

“I couldn’t believe it until I checked it on the internet,” she said. “I just thought – this is England for goodness’ sake.”

She now wants others to be on guard.

“Little boys out playing would pick a spider up,” she said.

“Or they could fall on babies in prams. In the old days you used to put nets over prams, but you rarely see them now.”

Poole GP Dr Tom McKinstry, for the BMA, said: “I thought you could die from a false widow bite just if you were allergic, but otherwise it makes you pretty ill for 12-14 hours.

“It’s really bad if Catherine’s had that sort of reaction, and very worrying.”

People who have an allergic reaction experience swollen lips and skin.

The larynx can also be affected, leading to shortness of breath.

“Any degree of toxicity can affect kidneys and liver with poison, but I’m not sure that happens with this spider,” Dr McKinstry added.