A 62-year-old Florida man has died after receiving a bite from a rare and poisonous brown recluse spider, according to the Polk County Health Department.
Ron Reese was renovating an old home in Mulberry, Fla. when the spider bit him - but did not see a doctor because he thought it would heal on its own, his father, Bill Reese, 89, told ABC's Tampa Bay affiliate WFTS.
"It bit him right on the back of his neck and rotted out to the vertebrae," Bill Reese told WFTS. "He wasn't afraid of anything. He thought he was invincible. But he wasn't."
He probably didn't know it was a poisonous spider, and figured the bite would just be an itch that would heal itself.
The majority of southerners know that poisonous spiders are native to the south AND can kill you. Northerners (usually) don't have to worry about them, yet.
