The 42-year-old woman was exercising. Mountain bike (mountain bike) on a trail outside Cairns, Australia. Everything looked great, but everything changed when she pulled off the track to go down a gorge, where she slipped and landed on a thorny plant.

Mother fell on extremely poisonous plant and is still in pain nine months later – Photo: Montage/Australian Geographic/Dan Campbell/Naomi Lewis/Reproduction/ND

Identified as Naomi Lewis, she says she began to feel “great pain”. This is because Naomi’s feet were in contact with a bush known as “gympie sting”, “bush sting”, or “suicide plant”.

This species is native to the region’s rainforests and releases a potent neurotoxin when touched. “The pain was unbearable,” the woman said in an interview with the Australian channel ABC News. “The body reaches the threshold, so I started to feel sick.”

The plant causes “terrible” pain

A mother of four, she said, “None of them came close to giving birth. [dessa dor]”. Richard, Naomi’s husband, hurried with her to the nearest pharmacy, where he bought wax, trying to apply it to the affected areas, covered with a crust from the burning sensation secreted by the plant.

It was a way to ease the pain while waiting for the ambulance to arrive. “I remember waiting and telling my husband, ‘I can’t handle this,'” she said.

In the emergency department, the only medical alternative was to relieve the patient’s pain. She was given hot dressings on her wounds and then transferred to another hospital where she spent seven days receiving painkillers.

After discharge, treatment continued at home, based on medications and heat compresses.

Naomi was only able to stop her medication last Christmas. However, nine months after the incident, she claims she is still in pain, leading her to warn the public: “Don’t get close to them. [da planta em questão]. Do not touch. Is it dangerous”.