Finally! An answer for an unswered Q!

[White Lightning]

I could never understood what the CellPhone camera is good for. Now I know the answer!!

Spider attack chef saved by mobile phone snap

By Lester Haines

Published Wednesday 27th April 2005 14:50 GMT

Somerset chef who was bitten twice by a highly-venemous Brazilian spider was saved thanks to a snap he took of the beast on his mobile phone, the Times reports.

Matthew Stevens, 23, disturbed the Brazilian Wandering Spider (Phoneutria fera) which had stowed away in a crate of bananas and found its way to the Quantock Gateway pub in Bridgwater. The highly-aggressive arachnid - rated among the world's most poisonous - then apparently legged it and took cover under a dishcloth. Stevens takes up the story: "It was hiding in a cloth and when I squeezed the cloth it bit me. It was about as big as the palm of my hand. I went to try and pick it up and it bit me again. It landed in the freezer, which stunned it."

Unaware that he had just been savaged by a monster which carries enough venom to dispatch 225 mice to the hereafter, Stevens then grabbed a quick pic on his mobe as a keepsake of the encounter. However, he was soon on his way to the local community hospital after his hand swelled "to the size of a balloon" and he began to suffer dizziness.

Hospital staff had a shufti and sent Stevens on his way with a quick "go home and keep an eye on it". Soon after arriving, he collapsed, prompting his partner, Cara McSweeney, to call an ambulance which whisked the rapidly deteriorating chef to Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton.

Doctors put Stevens on a saline drip, but his condition continued to worsen. He recalled: "I thought I wasn’t going to make it. My chest was so tight I could hardly breathe. My blood pressure was going through the roof and my heart was beating so hard I could feel it hitting my chest. The doctors didn’t know what type of spider it was, but I’d got a picture of it on my phone and they sent it to Bristol Zoo to identify it."

Stevens was discharged the next day after docs flushed the toxins out of his system with increased saline. Defra inspectors later found the spider in a state of "suspended animation" in the fridge.

The Times notes that the Wandering Spider killed 14 people in Brazil between 1926 and 1996, although no-one has died since thanks to the successful development of an antidote. ®

Edited May 4, 2005 by White Lightning

[Rooster_Ties]

First thing I thought of when I read the title of this thread, was Charles Ives.

[White Lightning]

First thing I thought of when I read the title of this thread, was Charles Ives.

[ejp626]

What are the odds this guy becomes the next Jarrod (of Subway) for easyMobile?

[neveronfriday]

That's the culprit.

I just HATE spiders.

[sal]

I could never understood what the CellPhone camera is good for.

I thought this too, until I got one. I use mine all the time. Its funny how many things we can see in our day to day lives that are photogenic, but we never think about it becuase we don't have a camera with us. Problem solved!

[Randy Twizzle]

Here's another use for cellphone cameras from today's NY Daily News. It's the best subway pervert vs feisty Catholic schoolgirls story that I've read this year.

A subway pervert was caught in a flash yesterday by feisty Catholic schoolgirls armed with a cell phone camera in Queens, cops and witnesses said.

The suspect sicko flashed the teens twice last week as they rode the F train toward their high school in Jamaica Estates.

He got away - but made the mistake of lurking inside the 179th St. station yesterday just as the girls stepped off the train at 7:30 a.m.

Terrified, but determined to get the creep arrested, one of the girls snapped his photo with her cell phone and ran to NYPD Officer Vincent Tieniber for help, police sources said.

"The cop looked at the picture, ran down to the platform and spots the guy getting on a train," a high-ranking police source said.

"He grabs him and takes him upstairs where the girl IDs him," the source said. "A little bit of new-age policing."

The alleged pervert, 57-year-old vagrant Wilfredo Ponte, was wearing the same brown pants, short-sleeved button-down burgundy shirt, silver jacket and black shoes he had on Monday morning, police sources said. He wore the same ensemble last night when he was arraigned in Queens Criminal Court and held on $3,000 bond.

Although police say he told a detective, "Maybe I did it, maybe I didn't," his Legal Aid attorney said Ponte is no flasher.

Lawyer Joseph DiFlumeri said, "Mr. Ponte adamantly denies the allegations in the complaint. He's frustrated, he's upset that he's being accused of this."

The girls' principal at Mary Louis Academy, Sister Kathleen McKinney, said she was proud of her plucky students.

"Our girls wanted him arrested," she said. "They didn't want him doing this to anyone else. They were willing to do what they did to stop him."

A token booth clerk who helped the freshmen from nearby Mary Louis Academy praised them for staying calm and taking the photo.

"The girls came running up. They were really upset, but one had gotten the guy's picture, and wanted him stopped," said the clerk, who asked not to be named.

"For a grown man to be exposing himself to children at 7:30 in the morning, it's terrible," the clerk said. "That girl deserves a lot of credit for getting him off the street."

Ponte was arrested and charged with endangering the welfare of a child and public lewdness.

Ponte is apparently homeless - the address he gave cops turned out to be a Bronx bridal shop where one of his longtime friends works.

"He liked little girls," said the friend, Eva Santana, who described Ponte as a homeless man who often visited E&E Bridal on Westchester Ave.

"He liked to see the girls go by," she said. "We used to say, 'Get married, get an apartment.' But he wouldn't do it. He needed help. We told him every day, but he didn't want it."

Ponte targeted the girls because he was attracted by their freshman uniforms - baby blue shirts and gray skirts, a police source said.

Ponte's arrest brought some comfort to the parents and students, even as some of the girls remained shaken.

"I'm in a really bad state of mind," one of the teens said yesterday through her apartment door.

"She's scared," said her mother. "She's only 14."

[Big Wheel]

"For a grown man to be exposing himself to children at 7:30 in the morning, it's terrible," the clerk said. "

Is it not as terrible if he does it at 3:00 in the afternoon?