'Hurt more than childbirth': Mom of 4 who fell onto deadly 'suicide plant' while biking recounts ordeal
QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA: A mother of four was hospitalized after falling onto a venomous plant. Cairns native Naomi Lewis, 42, who was hospitalized after coming in contact with the poisonous Gympie-Gympie plant, said the terrible pain was worse than giving birth. She was riding a mountain bike on a jungle trail in the Cairns suburb of Smithfield in Far North Queensland last June when she collided with a stinging tree and was covered in its neurotoxin-laced hypodermic needle-like hairs.
Lewis fell off her bike to an embankment and landed in a dendrocnide moroides, also known as the stinging tree or Gympie-Gympie. However, she claimed to have known precisely what plant she had fallen upon. Queensland Health said that the woman thought her legs were on fire. “I’ve had four kids and had cesareans and a lot of stuff going on, but it’s nothing compared to this,” Lewis told the department. “It got me all over my legs, from my thighs down, basically everywhere I wasn’t wearing shorts," 7 News reported.
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'It was really, really horrific'
Lewis' entire lower body was covered in tiny needle-like hairs and stalks that were hollow in the middle which were injecting toxins into her body. “We went to a chemist, and I had everyone trying to wax my legs, trying to get the stinging hairs off me, while I was waiting for an ambulance,” Lewis said. “The pain was so bad, I started vomiting. I remember thinking I was completely done. The pain was just beyond unbearable. It was really, really horrific.” Lewis was taken to the ER at Cairns Hospital, where she spent a week in the hospital, although the effects of the plant would endure much longer.
“I was on nerve-blocking medication for months, and months,” she said. “I lived with heat packs strapped to my legs for a very long time. And I had to have them covered. Even now, if I walk into the fruit and veggie section at the supermarket, it feels like someone is snapping rubber bands at my skin on one section of my leg where it got obviously worse than everywhere else.”
Gympie-Gympie: The 'suicide plant'
The toxin-producing plant's effects have been compared to those brought on by spider and cone fish venom. “The toxins permanently change the sodium channels in the body's pain receptors, which may explain the long-lasting pain,” The University of Queensland said. The Gympie-Gympie is often referred to as the "suicide plant." The origin of the name may be traced to a tale that stinging tree specialist Dr Marina Hurley first wrote about after receiving a letter from a soldier who had become sick after falling into a poisonous plant on the Atherton tablelands in 1941. “The soldier had to be tied to a hospital bed for three weeks because of the severe pain. The soldier claimed (another) officer had shot himself as he could not stand the pain,” the report said.