7-year-old Luiz Miguel Furtado Barbosa, of Anhembi in Sao Paulo, Brazil, was putting on his shoes while preparing to go camping with his family on Oct. 23 when he felt a sting on his foot, Newsflash reported.
A 7-year-old boy in Brazil has died after suffering seven heart attacks brought on by a bite from a scorpion, reports say.
Luiz Miguel Furtado Barbosa, of Anhembi in Sao Paulo, Brazil, was putting on his shoes while preparing to go camping with his family on Oct. 23 when he felt a sting on his foot, Newsflash reported.
“As soon as he put (the shoe) on, he screamed in pain,” the boy’s mom, Angelita Proenca Furtado, told local news outlets. “As we didn’t find what had stung him, we kept looking. But his leg started to turn red and he said that the pain was increasing. That’s when I imagined that it really was a scorpion and that I needed to find it to find out which one it was.”
The family located a Brazilian yellow scorpion, or Tityus serrulatus, which is one of the most venomous scorpions in South America and the species responsible for the largest number fatal stings in the continent, according to the New York Post.
The boy's family rushed him to University of Sao Paulo Faculty of Medicine Clinics Hospital, where his condition initially improved, the Post reported.
However, as he started to get better, he suffered a series of seven heart attacks while in the hospital, due to the scorpion bite, The Independent reported.
The child passed away two days after getting stung.
The city reported that it has recorded a total of 54 incidents involving scorpions since the beginning of the year, according to the Post.
