7-Year-Old Boy's Parents Issue Warning After Son's Curiosity Has Very Serious Consequences
By Dreamer
A boy in Mississippi was stung by the most venomous caterpillar in America.
Wyatt McCaskill, a 7-year-old boy from Horn Lake, Mississippi, was playing in his front yard when he decided to pick up a puss moth caterpillar.
“We were throwing leaves at each other, and I picked up one and it stung me,” he said. The dime-sized caterpillar, unbeknownst to Wyatt, holds a painful poison in its hair and is extremely dangerous.
Suddenly, the boy found himself in intense pain that moved from his finger up his arm, and then to his chest.
“He is in the most pain I've ever seen him in,” his mother, Kelli McCaskill, said. “Sick to his stomach."
After rushing her son to the hospital thinking he’d been stung by a bee, Kelli learned of the caterpillar’s dangerous sting.
“They are the most poisonous, so I heard that their sting can be more painful than a jellyfish or bee,” she said. Kelli and her son are now warning other families to be on the lookout for the fuzzy, venomous insects.
The best course of action if stung by the caterpillar’s fur is to use a piece of tape to remove the spines of the fur from your skin, wash the area with soap and water, and then apply ice.
The puss moth caterpillar is most commonly found in trees in Texas, Louisiana and Florida between July and November.
Sources: Fox Carolina, KCTV 5 / Photo credit: foxcarolina.com
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