A barrister on the trip of a lifetime almost lost his leg after being bitten by a spider.
Doctors told Jonathon Hogg he could have died after he was believed to have been bitten by a poisonous brown recluse spider on a flight from Qatar to South Africa.
Within hours, the 40-year-old’s leg had ballooned and turned black; by the time he reached hospital it was “bursting open”.
Hogg, from Camden, north London, said: “The pain was like nothing I’ve been through in my life. By the time I got to hospital my leg was bursting open, there was pus, it was black.
“It was a right mess. They told me if I had been any later I would have lost my leg or even died. It was terrifying.”
Doctors rushed him into surgery and cut away a large part of his leg where the venom had eaten the flesh, but what was left “resembled something from a horror film”.
Hogg spent a month in hospital in South Africa, undergoing three operations and a skin graft, but three months on is still receiving medical treatment.
The keen footballer and kickboxer is now terrified of flying and fears he will never play sport again.
Hogg had taken five months off work and worked at an orangutan sanctuary in Borneo before travelling to South Africa in June to dive with sharks when his ordeal began.