First responders stepped in to save an elderly man who was attacked by a swarm of bees Wednesday, according to local reports.
The swarm stung the North Bay senior citizen multiple times while he was flying a remote-control model airplane near Petaluma, according to NBC Bay Area.
#BREAKING A man is in the hospital after being stung by bees from several hives. He was retrieving a model plane when the bees swarmed and attacked him. Paramedics took the man to the hospital. @nbcbayarea pic.twitter.com/FZ94jjRU2X
— John Zuchelli (@tvzuke) June 28, 2023
The 70-year-old man was attempting to retrieve his model aircraft from a crash when the swarm attacked. The victim’s friends managed to “keep him alive” until EMTs from the fire department arrived, Duty Chief Kelly Bradley of North Bay Fire told the outlet.
“The bees were uppity, they picked on him and when he came back here the bees followed him and they attacked all of us,” Victor Barbieri, a friend of the victim, said in an interview with ABC7.
First responders had to navigate the aggressive insects as they approached the man. There were bees around the victim’s head, neck and chest, the outlet reported, citing Bradley. EMTs brought the unnamed man to the hospital after performing life-saving measures. (RELATED: ‘Fully Engulfed’: Swarm Of Bees Go Under Elderly Kentucky Man’s Eyelids, Force Him To Get Surgery)
The emergency call merely reported one bee sting, Bradley told NBC Bay Area.
Video footage captured the bee swarm, which one beekeeper said was abnormal, according to ABC7.
“It’s not a normal reproductive swarm, which means that it’s likely that the hives they’ve been associated with have been moved while they were out of the hive,” Bees N Blooms Farm beekeeper Susan Kegley told the outlet. “They don’t have any place to go back to and they are pretty angry about it.”
It is still unknown exactly why the insects were allegedly behaving so erratically.
“If you disturb bees, they’ll be angry for a little bit but not like this,” Kegley added.