The Milwaukee Brewers general manager thought he was killing a spider with a piece of tissue, until a scorpion stung his middle finger. When his finger started to immediately swell and numbness reached up to his shoulder, Doug Melvin got scared, according to the Chicago Tribune on March 8, 2013.
Melvin went to the hospital with worries this numbness would attack his heart or stop his breathing. After three hours in the emergency room, he went home, but his arm is still “totally numb” reports Melvin as reporters interviewed him about his harrowing ordeal.
Melvin had just sat down to dinner when he noticed a bug on the floor in his Phoenix-area condo that he lives in during spring training. He grabbed a tissue, thinking the bug was a spider and it stung him right through the thin paper.
The doctors at the ER told Melvin that the bite was not fatal, but he could have an allergic reaction to it, so they kept him at the hospital to keep an eye on him for a few hours. If he did have a reaction, he would have been given the anti-venom drug. They also told him his vision can go blurry.
Thankfully Melvin didn’t have a reaction or become temporarily impaired visually. He was back at training on Saturday, but his arm was still numb, he told reporters.
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