They were badly beehived.
An 81-year-old Oklahoma man is lucky to be alive following a savage three-hour attack by over 200 “killer bees” — which was so vicious he reportedly broke his hip trying to escape.
“I hit some of them with my hands and you just can’t kill ’em fast enough,” Carl Amos told Fox of the “relentless” aerial assault, which occurred last Friday at his home in Mayville.
The senior was reportedly mowing the lawn when he was beset by a swarm of over 100 bees.
“They were going in my hair and going in my ears and in my nose, and I thought I better keep my mouth shut because those bees will be in my mouth,” the Oklahoman described. “I crunched ‘em and then they didn’t come out, so I blew and then some of them came out and then I stuck my finger in my nose and pulled them out.”
Amos’ family believes the assailants were Africanized honey bees or killer bees, an invasive species imported from Brazil that attacks in far greater numbers than their European counterparts and is responsible for numerous attacks and deaths across the US.
Despite his valiant efforts to defend himself, the bombardment was overwhelming.
It was reportedly like a game of whack-a-mole in which Amos would try and eradicate the bees in his ear with a tissue, only for their buzzy brethren to fly up his nose like entomological waterboarding, Koco News 5 reported.
Feeling outnumbered, the bee-seiged fellow tried to flee the scene but ended up tripping and breaking his hip. “I heard it pop, so I thought this is not good,” described Amos, who said the insects continued to sting him while he was on the ground.
The attack lasted for three hours before a man from a neighboring business came by and called an ambulance, likely saving the victim’s life.
Amos was subsequently transported to the Norman Regional emergency room, where a team of physicians worked diligently to remove all the stingers.
Presiding medic Dr. Savannah Phillips, who’d never treated a case this extreme, claimed that the octogenarian had “over 100” stingers in him, which were concentrated on his face and hands.
After nurses removed as many as they could, the patient was then transferred to another facility for hip surgery.
He is currently resting and recovering following his horrific insect acupuncture.
The family recently created a GoFundMe page to help cover Amos’ medical bills and therapy and also foot the cost of removing the bees-nest from his home.
“After all this, he is in good spirits but it will be a long road to recovery,” his daughter Heather wrote in the description. “He will require therapy to get back on his feet.”
She added, “The bee hive will have to be removed before he can even go home.”
Dr. Phillips said the patient is lucky to be alive as getting stung that many times can prove life-threatening.
“You can have so much swelling that your airway starts to close that you’re not able to breathe on your own,” she said. “We look for things like if his voice were to change if he wasn’t able to tolerate swallowing water.”
Of particular concern is an allergy to bee venom, in which stings can trigger anaphylactic shock, causing the victim to experience swelling, breathing problems and even loss of consciousness and death.
Amos is grateful that the samaritan intervened when he did. “I feel like I owe him my life,” he said.
In a similarly horrific bee attack earlier this month, a volunteer cop with the Los Angeles Police Department collapsed on live TV when he was attacked by a swarm of angry bees and stung up to 100 times.
He was eventually rescued and taken to a hospital, where he was treated for fractures and bruises along with the bee stings.
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