22-year-old man dies after redback spider bite just months after younger brother killed in car crash
Jayden Burleigh was bitten while walking along the New South Wales coast, but the cause of death is unknown
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Your support makes all the difference.An Australian family is mourning the death of their son who had been treated for a bite from a venomous redback spider, just months after their younger son was killed in a car crash.
Jayden Burleigh, 22, from Sydney’s northern beaches, died on Saturday after being hospitalised with an infection from the spider bite, though the cause of death is not yet known.
Mr Burleigh had reportedly been walking on the coast of New South Wales when he was bitten by the redback. He was treated for a severe abscess at Queensland’s Nambour Hospital for four days, after having recently recovered from injuries sustained in a car accident, but died two days after he was released.
His family told the Sydney Morning Herald the exact cause of death would not be known for several weeks.
Mr Burleigh’s sudden death came just eight months after his younger brother, Lachlan, was killed in a car crash.
Lachlan was 17-years-old when he was killed in a head-on collision with another car near New South Wales’ Blue Mountrains last August. He and three friends had been returning home from a dance festival at the time of the crash. Two other passengers, Ben Sawyer, 19, and Luke Shanahan, 21, died in the collision, but the driver survived with minor injuries.
Parents Deborah and Mike Burleigh told Fairfax Media that there is “an immensely deep hole on this planet now, and [Jayden’s] loss cannot be comprehended by the human heart”.
“However, his legacy will eternally live on as he continues his heavenly adventures together with Lachie.”
Bites from female redback spiders can be dangerous and have caused deaths in the past, but according to the Australian Museum, none have been recorded in the country since the creation of antivenom in 1956.
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