Florida Man Suffers Thousands of Bee Stings

"It was one of the scariest things I’ve ever experienced," Terry Ford told television reporters in West Palm Beach, Florida. Ford was in his Fort Myers yard cutting the grass when suddenly a swarm of Africanized honeybees—also known as killer bees—descended on him and began stinging.

"I just couldn’t get them off," said Ford. A passerby stopped and brought a fire extinguisher over to Ford and began spraying, trying to drive the bees away. Not only did the spray fail to stop the attack, it only made the bees angrier. "It was extremely painful," Ford said. "It was like I was on fire." Ford thought that if he dropped to the ground he might not be able to get back to his feet, so he struggled to stay on his feet and try to keep moving. "If it would have been a child or an older person, there’s no way they would have made it," he told reporters.

Wildlife officials said that one sting from an Africanized honeybee is not any more painful or dangerous than being stung by any other bee, except that Africanized bees attack in huge swarms. The bees are called "killer bees" because they are unusually aggressive, descending upon unsuspecting victims in an angry cloud, unlike more docile domestic bees.

Ford was taken to a local hospital as soon as the attack was over. Emergency room doctors said that he could have died from the bee stings had he not received medical treatment quickly. After being treated, Ford was released from the hospital and is at home recovering from the attack.