FALSE widow spider bite victims of all ages have come forward to share their stories of agony.

Little Morgan Rooke, 10, went to A&E after being bitten by the venomous spider as she played in the garden at her home in Poole.

Morgan’s mum Samantha Druce, 40, says Morgan’s whole hand went numb from the puncture on the end of one of her fingers last Friday.

Samantha, of Parkstone Avenue, said: “She’s always handling bugs and spiders, and came in quite calm to say she’d been bitten.

“We looked it up on the internet and found out what it was. Her hand started throbbing and so I called up NHS Direct and went through their questions.

“By then her hand was numb so I took her down to casualty.”

The Baden-Powell School pupil’s reaction was not as severe as that of Catherine Coombs, from Lytchett Matravers, as reported by the Daily Echo on Tuesday.

“Morgan’s always played with spiders and has just got a natural resistance to them I think,” Samantha said.

She added: “I think the spiders are quite prevalent. They obviously are around, maybe more because it has been warm.”

Bournemouth great-grandmother Brenda Moon said she was in agony for more than three weeks after being bitten twice on her back by a baby false widow during her sleep.

Chandlers Close resident Mrs Moon, 75, says prescribed antihistamines did little to ease the pain from the sore patch which was the size of her hand.

“It was absolute agony,” Mrs Moon, who found the dead spider in her bed, said.

“It was just like when I had shingles, when all the nerve endings started twitching.”

Curious as to what the spider was, she and husband Ray pickled it in spirits and sent it off to an arachnologist in Norwich, who confirmed it was a baby false widow.