Discovering the Fire Ants of the Suncoast

SARASOTA, Fla. (WWSB) - ABC7 weekend news anchor Ellie Davis was working on Siesta Key Beach when she felt something on her foot. She was recording a Girl Scout cleanup event. “I felt something kind of nip. Not enough to bother me, but enough to notice and look down and go, ‘Weird,’” Davis said. Swelling and treatmentA welt had formed by the time Davis got back to her car. Hours later, her foot had swollen.“Within the next four hours, I would say my right foot was almost three times the size of my left one,” Davis said.She said she could not feel three of her five toes.“I was super nervous,” Davis said.Urgent care gave Davis steroid shots the next day.“They had to put a couple of shots in to reduce the swelling because it was cutting off the circulation from my foot to my ankle,” Davis said.Davis said she was concerned about losing toes.“If the swelling didn’t start to go down, I was going to start freaking out,” she said.Doctors could not find a bite mark and were not sure whether the