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Carl Amos had so many tears filling his eyes that he couldn’t put in the passcode to his cellphone as he tried to call for help.
Lying on the grass outside his Maysville, Okla., home last month, the 81-year-old used one hand to swat away at the swarm of bees stinging him while he tried to unlock his phone with the other.
But Amos could barely see, typing the wrong combination so many times he’d have to wait at least an hour until he could try again. He didn’t know about the feature that would let him call 911 without typing the passcode.
The cloud of bees stuck around him, still stinging.
They stung him like that for three hours, as Amos tried his best to stay calm and stave off life-threatening injuries from the insects, known as Africanized bees. He was eventually rescued by strangers who passed by and saw him struggling. Afterward, he was left with a broken hip from a fall in his yard and hundreds of stingers in his body in the attack that ensued.
“The pain was excruciating,” Amos told The Washington Post. “I can’t tell you how much it hurt.”
What to do if you get attacked by bees? First, run away.
Around 10 a.m. on May 26, Amos had been mowing his lawn alone at home when he first heard buzzing. Expecting the sound to be coming from a few bees, he stepped off his riding lawn mower and started walking toward his porch to grab a bottle of insect repellent.
Before he could make it, the bees were “on top of me,” Amos said.
That morning, he was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and pants with a sun hat, but they weren’t enough to protect his skin from being stung by the swarm of bees.
“I realized I had to get out of there,” Amos said. “Because they were really coming down on me.”
He started to run but tripped and fell. He heard a “snap” sound, saw blood coming through his pants and knew he’d broken something.
On the ground, the stings got even worse. Bees covered his skin, crawling into his ears, up his nostrils and around his eyes. He couldn’t move or roll without agonizing pain shooting through his body.
After he failed to unlock his phone, Amos tried to calm his mind, thinking there might still be a way to get someone’s attention.
But first, he knew he needed to cover himself up as much as possible. He pulled the sun hat as far down on his forehead as it would go. He had a napkin in his back pocket that he reached for, tore apart and stuffed into his ears.
Finally, he took out the handgun that he’d kept on him. He used the holster to cover his eyes and remembered the distress signal often used in the wilderness.
Then, Amos lifted the handgun up and shot toward the sky three times, hoping someone would hear.
Hours passed after that. More stings were dotting his body. But no one came.
He hollered as much as he could before his voice went hoarse. Then, he lifted his left leg, the one that wasn’t bleeding, up in the air, praying it would catch someone’s eye from beyond the fence in his front yard.
The bees still weren’t letting up. By then, Amos felt close to resigning, out of ideas for how to get help.
Lord, I need your help, he recalled thinking. Please help me.
Around 1 p.m., workers from the nearby Burford Corporation, a machinery company, were passing by on their way back from lunch.
One of them looked over to see Amos on the ground in his yard. He jumped the fence and yelled to Amos.
“Hey buddy, I’m coming for you,” the man said to Amos.
“Bees, bees,” Amos croaked in response.
“Oh my gosh,” the man replied. “They’re stinging me now.”
He and a few others from Burford — including one who was a beekeeper — called 911 and tried to keep the bees away from Amos’s face. First responders fought off some of the bees with a water hose.
Shortly after, Amos was taken to a Norman, Okla., hospital, where he had hip surgery. Medical staff took out hundreds of bee stingers from his body using tweezers.
While he was at the hospital, Amos warned his wife, who was with a family member that day, that she couldn’t stay in the house because the killer bees were so dangerous. He also asked a friend to put a sign on his fence to warn passersby about the bees while the family worked to find someone who could remove them. A contractor later found them nestled high up in the chimney of his home.
Amos said he was lucky that strangers eventually arrived to help.
“If no one came, I’d be in real trouble,” he said.
As he recovers, Amos has thought of the things he would’ve done differently and the things he hopes others who may encounter the killer bees — which are more aggressive than honey bees or bumble bees — will know if they are ever in a situation as dire as his.
He would’ve learned to make an emergency call without dialing the passcode. He would’ve worn gloves outside so he could’ve used his hands more easily on his phone. And he would’ve had more regular inspections for bees and other pests to be aware of the insects around his home.
When he’s able to leave the hospital, Amos might change something else, too.
“I may not be mowing the lawn anymore,” he said.
Source link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/06/05/killer-bees-attack-oklahoma/