Ohio man out of coma after being stung by bees 20,000 times // Article
Austin Bellamy, 20, was trimming a lemon tree last week when he unknowingly cut open a beehive, releasing thousands of African killer bees that quickly swarmed around his head, neck and shoulders, his mother, Shawna Carter told Fox News.
“It looked like he had a black blanket on his head down to his neck, down to his arms,” she told the local outlet.
Bellamy was trimming overgrown branches up in the tree Friday morning as his grandmother Phyllis Edwards and his uncle watched from the ground.
Suddenly, he slashed open the hive and the angry bees flew out.
“When he started cutting them, that’s when the bees came out, and he tried to anchor himself down, and he couldn’t,” Edwards told Fox19. “He was hollering, ‘Help! Help me! Help!’”
She and Bellamy’s uncle were under attack as well and unable to help.
“I was going to try and climb the ladder to get to Austin … I seen how high he was … but I couldn’t get to him because I was surrounded [by] bees,” she said.
Carter said her son had been stung more than 20,000 times and had swallowed about 30 bees in the description of a fundraiser she set up to cover his medical expenses.
She told Fox19 that hospital staff members were “suctioning” bees out of Bellamy through Sunday morning.
She said she passed out when she first heard what had happened to her son.
