I felt burning through my body’: Woman nearly dies after picking up a ‘beautiful beetle’ at state park

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A trip to a Maine historic site nearly turned fatal for a local mother after a chance encounter with a beetle triggered a severe medical emergency.

Antoinette Webb, an Army veteran, was visiting Fort Knox in Prospect with her children when she picked up a brightly colored insect, reportedly a six-spotted tiger beetle.

“A berry green, beautiful beetle I’ve never seen,” Webb told WABI 5 News. “And I just picked him up and I said, ‘Whoa, you’re so pretty.’ And within seconds I felt burning through my body.”

After she felt the initial symptoms, Webb climbed straight up a hill to the gift shop to find help. Dean Martin, a former Army medic and executive director of the nonprofit Friends of Fort Knox, stepped in to assist as Webb’s condition worsened.

“She’s lying there and I’m holding her hand and I’m talking to 9-1-1 and I’m holding her,” Martin told the outlet. “She passes out because of a constricted airway, she’s got a lack of air. She’s got blue lips.”

Dean Martin, a former Army medic, used his military training to stabilize Antoinette Webb after she suffered a life-threatening allergic reaction to a beetle (WABI 5 News)

Martin, his wife Sherry, and a staff member named Alex provided initial care and administered Benadryl until paramedics arrived. Webb later received four epinephrine shots at the hospital.

Webb returned to the fort with her 9-year-old twins just a day later for an emotional reunion with the staff.

“I was just bawling,” Webb said. “Because of you, they have their mom today. I just started crying, like right now. When I saw him, I immediately — I knew I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for him.”