A woman in California was poisoned through her eyeball after her husband smashed a black widow spider and a chunk of its venom-soaked body hit her in the face. Within minutes, her left eye ballooned shut. Then came the nausea, followed by full-body cramps. Her arms, legs, and even her neck started to spasm. Doctors eventually traced it back to one absurd cause: venom from the spider had soaked into her eye’s thin membrane and entered her bloodstream. No bite — just splash damage. The 37-year-old woman had been cleaning out a shed with her husband when they spotted the large black spider. The husband smashed it with a hammer, which catapulted the exploded bug straight into his wife’s eye. She told doctors the pain hit instantly, followed by the other awful symptoms. The official diagnosis was accidental envenomation via ocular absorption, meaning her eye tissue absorbed enough of the black widow’s venom to trigger a systemic reaction. Black window bites rarely lead to death, but most people don’t end up absorbing venom through the literal window to the brain. This case is a reminder that spider encounters aren’t always the same. You don’t need a fang mark for venom to make its way into your body. Sometimes, all it takes is one unlucky squish at the wrong time.
