Daniela Holmqvist is fine after spider bite

Published on 15/02/2013 02:04

DANIELA Holmqvist performed emergency surgery with a golf tee to extract potentially fatal spider venom from her leg before going on to complete her round in a qualifying event for the women’s Australian Open in Canberra.

The 24-year-old Swede was on the fourth hole at the Royal Canberra Country Club on Tuesday when she was bitten by what she feared was a black widow. The bite immediately swelled up, but, instead of seeking medical attention, Holmqvist treated herself and went on to shoot 74, which, sadly, was not enough to qualify.

“I cut up the swelling with a peg and squeezed out the poison,” the golfer wrote on her blog. “My ‘operation’ was quite well done, but not well enough that I should quit as a golfer and look into medical school.

“They bandaged the wound, which will be supervised in the near future. If the leg is starting to feel weird, it’s apparently straight to the doctor, ‘without passing go’.”