Two Florida park employees were attacked by as many as 100,000 killer bees after accidentally upending a hive while cleaning up trash. David Zeledon and Rodney Pugh, employees at Picnic Island Park in Port Tampa, Fla., were using a front-end loader to clear a pile of trash near the park’s entrance when they stumbled on an old truck tire. Unaware that the hive was inside the tire, the men turned it over and were immediately engulfed by a swarm of aggressive “killer bees.”
“It was like a thousand little knives poking me in my body; my ears were just throbbing with pain,” Pugh told ABC Action News.
Though Zeledon and Pugh immediately started running to escape the attack, they were stung nearly 100 times each. The bees are thought to have originally come from Africa or South America, possibly aboard a port ship, Jonathan Simkins of Insect I.Q., the company called out to exterminate the hive, told ABC. He also said he expects to see other killer bee attacks in Florida. “The problem that we’re having is the wild bees,” Simkins told ABC. “This pile of rubbish wasn’t moved for three years. So this colony’s been breeding and sending out colonies.”
Now for the understatement of the year: “They have a horrible attitude,” Insect I.Q. employee Jason Deeringer told ABC’s Tampa Bay affiliate WFLA.
No, really, you think? Watch the news interview below:
