Holidaymaker nearly loses leg after spider bite

A holidaymaker on the trip of a lifetime almost lost his leg after suffering a flesh-eating spider bite.

Doctors told Jonathon Hogg he could have died after he was bitten by a poisonous brown recluse spider, which he believes happened on a flight from Qatar to South Africa.

Within hours the 40-year-old’s leg had ballooned and turned black, and by the time he reached hospital it was “bursting open”.

Mr Hogg, from Camden, north London, said: “The pain was like nothing I’ve been through in my life. By the time I got to hospital my leg was bursting open, there was pus, it was black.

Doctors rushed him into surgery and cut away a large part of his leg where the venom had eaten the flesh, but what was left “resembled something from a horror film”.

He spent a month in hospital in South Africa, undergoing three operations and a skin graft.

Mr Hogg, a barrister, had taken five months off work and worked at an orangutan sanctuary in Borneo before travelling to South Africa in June to dive with sharks when his ordeal began.

Six hours into a flight from Doha to Cape Town he felt a pain in his leg before spotting a spider running across the floor.

He has launched legal action against Qatar Airways, which he says has refused to accept responsibility.