A disturbing story out of Eastland, Texas is gaining national attention, where a man succumbed to stings after suffering a vicious bee attack. On April 27th, Stephen Daniel was attacked by a swarm while mowing his lawn and, in an attempt to escape, jumped into his car and drove off. He did not get far, as the insects continued to sting him in the vehicle, which he crashed into a neighbor’s property.
The neighbor, Chrishae Cooper, called the police, who found Daniel still being stung by the insects in his truck. “Officers immediately evacuated the driver from the area and placed him inside a police vehicle a distance from the initial attack to escape further bee stings,” reads a statement from the Eastland Police Department on Facebook. The statement goes on to say that Daniel became “unresponsive” and stopped breathing after he was transferred to an ambulance a short while later. He was pronounced dead Eastland Memorial Hospital.
Police and a local beekeeper were later able to locate the beehive in an abandoned building near Daniel’s lawn. Officers have arranged for it to be safely removed from the area.
Eastland Police confirmed to La Voce that the attack on Stephen Daniel was from bumblebees, which are larger in size than honeybees, but form much smaller hives that contain only around fifty insects. They are generally more docile than honeybees, considered likely to attack only if they feel threatened or if their colony is under attack, which us usually located underground and thus harder to spot. Unlike honeybees, bumblebee stingers are not barbed, allowing them to sting multiple times. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, an average of 78 Americans die every year from bee, wasp, and hornet stings.
