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PORT ST. LUCIE (WPTV) - At Whispering Pines Park in Port St. Lucie this weekend, Tara Forbes was underneath an oak tree watching her son on the playground.
"I thought maybe I was getting a little sunburn," Tara said. But the burn became excruciating and quickly turned into joint and bone pain. She continued "I looked down and I had black and white fuzz here and white fuzz on the inside and it just immediately felt like fire, like somebody took a flame to my skin."
The fuzz, she said, came from a puss caterpillar. "My arm swelled up from my finger tips to my shoulder, up into my neck, and even into my chest here," said Tara. She later became dizzy and nauseous and hurried back home.
Tara is a nurse and her husband is a firefighter, so they were able to take care of her at home. But, she says others should heed her warning. "I think if this happened to my son or somebody else's child, they should go directly to the ER because it was very painful," she said.
Tara was able to bear the pain after about ten hours, but didn't sleep. More than 24 hours later, she still felt sore.
Tara is telling her story so parents will talk to their children. She says that "I think it would be good for other parents just to be aware that when you're the outdoors like we did, these things could happen. Know to see medical help immediately when it does happen."
A spokesperson for the city said that after hearing the Forbes story, they searched around the park but could not find any more of the caterpillars. They will be back to check again and they say that they do check all their parks daily for potential hazards like this.
Puss caterpillars are among the most poisonous ones in the U.S.
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Story via WPTV