Dan CheethamA former Royal Marine has had a finger amputated, 13 years after being bitten by a black widow spider.
Plymstock resident Dan Cheetham, 41, suffered the venomous bite on his right hand in 2012 while in the middle of the Mojave Desert in California during a training exercise.
Mr Cheetham, originally from Wrexham, said he was taken to hospital via a 14-minute helicopter ride at the time of the incident, where he was treated with antibiotics and anti-venom.
He said two small puncture wounds were visible at the bottom of his ring finger for about seven-years and, in November 2025, his little finger was removed after the joints “got lazy” and it was of “no use” to him anymore.
Getty ImagesMr Cheetham did not know he had been bitten at the time, but instead thought he slept awkwardly on his arm as it felt “dead”.
“Turns out that I’d been bitten by a black widow on my right ring finger,” he said.
He said medics applied a tourniquet as they realised venom was heading up his arm toward his shoulder.
“Because of the tracking, the blood was starting to congeal, it was almost like plasticine,” he said.
“I had IV drips coming out of every vein in the arm.”
He added: “All I could taste was Fairy Liquid I can remember that, that was a mixture of antibiotics and anti-venom.”
Mr Cheetham said steps were being taken in 2024 to save both fingers which were affected by the bite.
“I always knew there was an issue as it got to a point where the nerves had deteriorated that much,” he added.
“I sort of disowned it from part of my body…it was almost like a comedy sketch putting the right glove on.”
He said his discharge notes from the Royal Marines made for an “an interesting read”.
“You’d expect mortar bombs and, you know, and anything else that we experience and yeah we’ve got a Californian black widow,” he added.
Mr Cheetham said he did not carry a fear of spiders, but added “the bigger ones are the easy ones, it’s the ones that you can’t see are the issue”.
