Spiders ‘were walking on my eardrums’

ALBANY, Ore. – These guys weren’t exactly Snap, Crackle and Pop.

What began as a faint popping in a 9-year-old boy’s ear – “like Rice Krispies” – ended up as an earache, and the doctor’s diagnosis was that a pair of spiders had made a home in his ear. “They were walking on my eardrums,” Jesse Courtney said.

One of the spiders was still alive after the doctor flushed the fourth-grader’s left ear canal. His mother, Diane Courtney, said her son insisted he kept hearing a faint popping in his ear.

When Dr. David Irvine irrigated the ear, the first spider came out, dead. The other spider took a second dousing before it emerged alive. Both were about the size of a pencil eraser.

Jesse was given the spiders – now both dead – as souvenirs.

“It was real interesting, ‘cause two spiders in my ear – what next?” Jesse said.