Scorpions in general in Africa are dangerous but I’ve not heard of the bush spider. I cannot believe that you still have numbness on the tip of your finger 30 years later! Ok - you take the prize for the most painful encounter! 
I detest wasps! Even their nests look scary!
I was about 13 or 14 when I went to Blankenburg (Belgium) for a week on a school trip. One sunny day we all went down to the beach, teachers and all, to play games and swim in the sea.
I loved swimming and was the first to go splashing through the surf and started swimming out. We had been warned about the jellyfish lurking just below the surface, but were assured that should we inadvertently come into contact with one, it would be no more than a nettle sting of which I have had plenty.
So I ducked and veaved my way through a small gathering of them undaunted, until I came face to face with a large purple one that looked somehow different from the others. It was heading straight for my face, so I raised my arm and swept it out of my way. I immediately felt an excruciating pain down my arm, my chest and tummy, and the inside of my thigh as it swept past.
In great pain I swam to the shore and staggered up the beach to a concerned teacher. Each beach had it’s own little hut for changing and a bloke who looked after it. He applied something to the red hives that were now burning like fury, he told us that it was very serious and I should be taken back to the hotel and a doctor called forthwith. A teacher helped a now delirious Foxy back to the digs, and the doctor soon followed with a hypodermic full of some potion, and apart from the intense pain, that was the last thing I remember until waking up in the evening.
I have never forgotten the pain that I felt on that day, and have not experienced anything like it since, even when breaking my arm in a road accident, when the car left the road and fell on my arm after it went flailing through the windscreen…(I wasn’t driving just in case you were wondering)
I returned to Blankenburg (Belgium) last year (before Covid) on a New Year Cruise. We left the ship to travel by train to Bruges, at the ticket office they refused to take cards, so I was advised to go to the machine round the corner and bring back cash. The machine was faulty and ate my card…I had to spend the rest of the holiday with no card and no access to my bank account…
I have sworn an oath never to return to that God forsaken place ever again…
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It wasn’t a very big kitten either, but boy was it feisty, daft thing was immediately we got it in the carrying cage it just sat & stared at us.
Wow Swimmy! That’s terrible to hear. So sorry 
I had no idea African Greys could bite. Maybe this particular parrot was just aggressive for some reason.
I’ve heard that one should never interfere with dogs whist they’re fighting. Thank goodness both dogs didn’t turn on you.
Did you ever figure out what kind of sea monster got you that day sly old grey fox? It must’ve been especially difficult for you because all your schoolmates were around and you couldn’t cry.
Portuguese Man O’ War Minx…And I got a broadside…I didn’t know where I was the pain was so bad, so I don’t know if I cried or not…
It brought back such painful memories when I read you opening post…:shock:
Oh, for such a beautiful colony, they can inflict such a horrible sting. Once every few years, I’ll look out and the nearshore will be teaming with them. Pretty little glassy, painful creatures, they are!
I had no doubt that you would have had contact with them in the past Surfermom…I strongly recommend that enjoying them from a distance is the way to go…
So I am not the only one to have had an argument with a Portuguese Man-o-war! I was splashing about in the water in Bermuda when I was about 8 years old and I jumped off a rock straight through the middle of one. I was such a grumpy that my dad felt the need to take a photo!
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Sorry about the painful flashback! :hug:
We’ve experienced the same torture then 
It won’t stop me from swimmingly in the ocean though:-D
They’ll win the argument every time! Lovely photo Ciderman!
Thanks for the hug Minx, it’s been that long since I had a proper hug I’ve forgotten what they feel like…
I’ve swam in the sea lots of times since that unfortunate brush with the Man O’ War, because I like snorkelling. It would have to be somewhere warm like Malta or the Balearics though, the north sea where I live provides a such a shock to the system my Dad can feel it, and he’s been dead 12 years…:shock:
I’d only been dating Mrs Fox a couple of times back in 1971 when we went for a day out at the coast. Upon arrival at a deserted stretch of beach, I stripped down to my cossy and went in for a swim. It was February (the middle of winter here!)…:shock: The flask of tea we took with us sure tasted good when I came out…
Great photo by the way Ciderman, we should start a club for survivors of a Man O’ War attack and meet up…
No major injuries from animals for me.
A few ant bites, a couple of spider bites, wasp stings and a bee sting. I had a mild reaction to the spider bite where the skin became red and inflamed around the immediate area for a few days.
My Lovely Cousin is terrified of the things, so I went to evict it but couldn’t get the window open because the handle worked the opposite way to my hand. The thing bit me on my thumb, then when I put it in my other hand so I could open the window, the thing bit me again.
I still have a scar on my abdomen from a wasp sting where a friend of mine thought it would be a good idea to poke a stick into a wasps’ nest. Two of the soldiers chased me across a field for about a hundred metres before one of them managed to get under my shirt and jab me.
I got clocked by a horse when it swung its head and hit mine, knocking me over and bending my glasses.
I nearly got my arm broken whilst trying to persuade a cow to get into a cattle wagon. Luckily I escaped with mild bruising.
Then there was Patch, my Lovely Cousin’s white boxer dog, so named because he had a brown patch around one eye.
She got him when she was eleven and he was a cute ball of fluff. By the time she was fourteen, he was huge and far too big and strong for her to walk on a lead, so that job fell to my Uncle, or occasionally me when I visited.
Patch weighed 60 kilos, almost as heavy as I was at the time, and immensely strong.
I called in to see the family one weekend and my Aunt offered me a cup of hot chocolate. I was sitting on the settee when Patch decided to come and “say hello”, knocking my mug over and spilling the hot liquid in my lap.
It was extremely painful, and made more so by my embarrassment whilst I desperately tried not to grab my crotch or strip off in front of two teenage girls.
Worst of all, it completely ruined my … best white corduroy flares!
A few years later I went camping with my Uncle and his family, pitching my tent next to their caravan.
I was walking across a field with my Uncle who had his Father-in-Law’s dog on a lead, when Patch escaped from the caravan via a small kitchen window after jumping up onto the worktop and sink.
My Aunt screamed a warning as 60kg of white fury barrelled across the grass towards this other dog who had stolen his dad.
I met Patch head on and rugby tackled him to the ground, then hung on as he snarled and snapped and wriggled until my Aunt ran up and managed to get a lead on him.
I was battered and bruised, with sore ribs and a sore head where his breeze block of a head had hit me a glancing blow.
Luckily nothing was broken, but I did ruin yet another pair of trouserings as a result.
Patch was absolutely devoted to my Uncle, and it would have been unfair to separate them, so we decided the best thing to do was to leave “her” dog with her Dad when my Lovely Cousin and I got married.
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I had a rather painful encounter with a 
recently. His name is Nugget.
I got away with a horrid scratch on my hand.
My son Ryan wasn’t so lucky - he ended up with a scratch on his nose! Naughty Nugget!