Irish actor Jamie Dornan experienced a medical drama when an encounter with a dangerous and poisonous species of caterpillar caused him to develop symptoms resembling a heart attack and led to his hospitalization.
The hospitalization was revealed by Dornan's friend Gordon Smart, who himself was rushed to the hospital with similar symptoms after the two spent time at a golf resort in Portugal last year.
Smart recounted the details of the medical drama the two went through on the BBC podcast when he told how he and Dornan ("To This Day," "50 Shades of Grey") were initially convinced the symptoms they were experiencing were the result of drinking too much the night before.
To their surprise, the two discovered that the symptoms were the product of an encounter with the pine processionary or as it is professionally called the processionary twine, which is actually a poisonous moth.
Its larvae feed on the needles of the pine tree and they carry microscopic hairs on their bodies that contain toxic substances designed to protect the larvae from predators.
Smart revealed that a day into the two's vacation, he began to experience a tingling sensation in his arm and left hand, which made him think that it was a sign of the beginning of a heart attack.
The premiere of the movie "50 Shades of Grey" (archive)
Smart checked himself into a hospital and was released after tests.
When he returned to the hotel room, he discovered Dornan (41) connected to medical equipment.
He told him that about 20 minutes after he left, he too began to experience numbness in his left leg and right leg and found himself in the ambulance.
After a series of tests at the hospital, he was also released, and Smart remembers how the staff there did not forget to ask for a selfie to document the event.
A week later, the doctor called Smart and informed him that there was a good chance that the symptoms the two were experiencing were caused by the poisonous caterpillar.
"It turns out there are caterpillars on the golf courses in southern Portugal that have killed dogs and caused men in their 40s to experience heart attacks," he shared.
"It turns out that we probably came into contact with them and we were very lucky to get out of it alive."
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