As the more woke among us are aware, bees are largely endangered and their plight deserves a concerted degree of global attention. But after what happened to a Californian cleaning lady in Orange County on Monday morning, she has earned the right to have her name at the top of the list of people who could not give a flying shenanigan about bees.
The woman, in her 50s and identified only as Maria, popped out of the house she was cleaning to retrieve a mop from her car, when a swarm of Africanised Honeybees living in a nearby bush spotted her and wrongly assumed she was trying to start shit with them.
When emergency services were called, they were told to respond to a bee sting. But when the firemen pulled up to the Lake Forest home they saw Maria out front, being swarmed by 80,000 bees.
That’s eighty-THOUSAND, fam.
In a normal scenario, firefighters are instructed to wear protective garb before intervening, but according to one firefighter on site, Ryan Wilson, the bees were clustered in “golf ball-sized” groups all over the woman’s skin. Without hesitating, the emergency workers launched themselves into the recreation of the scariest scene from My Girl, spraying Maria and the bees down with a carbon dioxide fire extinguisher to subdue them.
At that stage, having already been stung about 200 times, Maria was barely conscious but was able to be transported to a local hospital, still with many bees on her. While she is currently in a critical condition, Maria has made better life choices than Macaulay Culkin and thankfully is set to make a full recovery, according to an update from her son on Monday night.
Earlier in the afternoon, first responders had closed off several blocks surrounding the site of the attack to prevent further harm to others, and by the end of the day professionals in protective suits had dismantled the hive and taken away several buckets of honey, during what could be described as the worst episode of Winnie The Pooh ever.
Lake Forest Bee Swarm: Large bee hive within the bushes being removed by bee expert. pic.twitter.com/YanPJojx0S
— OCFA PIO (@OCFireAuthority) July 16, 2018
According to bee experts, if you are ever under attack by a swarm of bees their expert advice is to run away as fast as you can. Thanks, experts, we’ll try.
