A Largs woman has told how her husband had to have three spinal injections after a spider bite in his back garden caused inflammation of his brain.

Margaret Wood’s husband was cutting a tree recently when he was bitten above the eye by a false widow.

She told how he quickly lost full control of his body and within two days was taken into hospital and left fighting for his life.

Margaret explained “He was in the garden tending to a tree and he came in and told me he thought he had been bitten on the head.

“We kept an eye on it but within 48 hours it was quite swollen and he had lost his co-ordination, so we took him to hospital.

“It turns out that he had an inflammation of the brain due to where the bite was.

"He was really ill in hospital for three weeks.

“He had to have three lumbar punctures to keep the inflammation down and they were treating him with heavy antibiotics on a constant drip.”

Margaret says that doctors were initially baffled by her husband’s illness and didn’t immediately link it to the spider bite.

She explained: “It was horrible and for a time it really didn’t look good for him, even the doctors were stumped by the cause.

“I had thought it was a stroke, and I think at the beginning the doctors did too, but he could talk and didn’t have any other symptoms.

“I could have lost him if we hadn’t been as quick getting him into the hospital to be looked at. It seemed a silly small bite, but it shows how important it is to take these things seriously.

“He’s been all over the world, and even worked in Dubai in the deserts, yet this happens right in his back garden.”

The false widow spider is named because of its resemblance to the infamous black widow spider, who’s bites can be fatal in some circumstances.

Margaret is hoping to make residents aware that these spiders are living locally - and urged people to take any bites seriously.

She said: “I just want people to be made aware that this can happen, and that it is more prevalent this year due to the lack of people out and about.

“The spiders like dark places that are still warm so people should be careful when they are in and around trees in the garden.

“It was a spider I had never heard of before and when I found out I was shocked that there was something so dangerous in our area.

“My husband has recovered, but it was a frightening time."