While cutting a tree in the state of Ohio, a man accidentally hits a killer bee nest and is attacked by a huge swarm. He was taken to the hospital with more than 20,000 stitches and had to be put into an artificial coma.
In the US state of Ohio, a young man has been stung thousands of times by killer bees and seriously injured. The 20-year-old Austin Bellamy had to be put into an artificial coma and artificially ventilated, as the US broadcaster Fox 19 reported. According to his family, he was stung more than 20,000 times. Bellamy reportedly cut branches from a lemon tree last Friday when he accidentally cut into a nest of African killer bees.
“When he started cutting them (the branches) the bees came out,” his grandmother Phyllis Edwards told Fox 19. “He was screaming, ‘Help, help me, help’ and nobody helped him.” The family watched from the ground as Bellamy was attacked by the bugs – but couldn’t help as she was being attacked herself. She wanted to climb up the ladder to help her grandson, said the grandmother. “But I couldn’t get to him because I was surrounded by bees.”
According to his mother, Bellamy also swallowed around 30 bees. It would have taken the doctors more than a day to suck them out of him. Accordingly, the doctors expect that the 20-year-old will fully recover. A firefighter saved her son, the mother said.
The killer bee is the Africanized honey bee. Compared to other bee species, all bees in the colony attack when threatened, not just a small number of animals as is usual. They stubbornly pursue the victim, resulting in several hundred bites. At the threshold of 1000 bites, it becomes critical for adults.
