October 25, 2008: Aussie Spider

[ZenGum]

If this thread ever comes up on the SDRTP, people are going to wonder what the hell footfootfoot is talking about. :p Suckers.

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This seems to be a bad time to be a bird in Northern Queensland.



Carpet Python 1. Cockatoo 0.

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Meanwhile, about 2500km south:



[from here].

AN elderly woman has been forced to have her leg amputated after it became infected and then gangrenous when she was pecked by a pet magpie.
The woman, 84, went to a hospital emergency department in Newcastle, NSW, with pain, swelling and redness to her lower left leg, near where her daughter's magpie had attacked her 11 days before.

She was admitted to hospital and prescribed antibiotics and anti-fungal drugs, but continued to worsen. Gangrene set in and her leg was amputated above the knee.

Infectious diseases physician Paul Wilson reported the case in the latest Medical Journal of Australia.

He said infections following pecking injuries were rare.

"Serious infections relating to trauma involving a bird have included septic arthritis of the knee after a chicken bite and a fatal brain abscess in a child caused by a rooster peck," Dr Wilson wrote.

In the Newcastle case, he said pre-existing circulation problems in the woman, a former smoker, may have contributed to the aggressive course of the infection.

I've had these buggers swoop me when I was riding my bike. With helmet and sunnies I was pretty safe and it could be a fun game trying to headbutt the guy at speed.