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Golfer Who Got Bitten By Black Widow And Kept Playing, You’re Our New Spider-Woman

Today is a Good Day For Someone Else To Die

It was just another day on the course for Swedish golfer Daniela Holmqvist. Until she was bit by a Black Widow spider, that is. Did the rookie run off to seek medical attention? No, she used a golf tee to cut into her skin and remove the venom. Daniela Holmqvist, you are a superhero. 

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I’m not a fan of spiders to begin with so I can’t imagine what my reaction would have been if I looked down, as Holmqvist did, and saw a black spider with a red spot on its back on my body. Seconds after she did, she doubled over in pain at the fourth hole of the season-opening LPGA event in Australia.

“When I told the local caddies in my group what had happened, they got very upset and said it was a Black Widow, and immediately started looking for their phones to call the medics,” said Holmqvist to Sweden’s Svensk Golf via Golf Digest.

But instead of waiting for the medics she decided to help herself, worried the venom, which had already caused swelling and intense pain, would go further into her system. So she grabbed what was handy, a tee in this case, and dug into the skin on her leg to squeeze out some clear fluid. Medical help did eventually arrive and followed her for the remaining 14 holes.

Oh yes, she finished the course.

Unfortunately, Holmqvist shot a 74 which didn’t qualify her to continue in the LPGA. As it turns out, she was bitten by an Australian Redback spider, a relative of the North American Black Widow. Either way, she’s totally Jessica Drew in our eyes. She later tweeted, “So there is ‘the shark’ ‘pink panther’ etc am I ‘the spider woman’now?”

Yes, yes you most certainly are.

(via SportsGrid)

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Author
Jill Pantozzi
Jill Pantozzi is a pop-culture journalist and host who writes about all things nerdy and beyond! She’s Editor in Chief of the geek girl culture site The Mary Sue (Abrams Media Network), and hosts her own blog “Has Boobs, Reads Comics” (TheNerdyBird.com). She co-hosts the Crazy Sexy Geeks podcast along with superhero historian Alan Kistler, contributed to a book of essays titled “Chicks Read Comics,” (Mad Norwegian Press) and had her first comic book story in the IDW anthology, “Womanthology.” In 2012, she was featured on National Geographic’s "Comic Store Heroes," a documentary on the lives of comic book fans and the following year she was one of many Batman fans profiled in the documentary, "Legends of the Knight."

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