A 20-year-old man is in a coma following being stung more than 20,000 times by killer bees in the United States, his family and local media reported Wednesday.
Tuesday evening, Austin Bellamy remained on life support and was in a coma voluntarily induced at the medical center of the university of Cincinnati, in Ohio (north), according to the local television channel Fox 19.
He is “fighting for his life,” his mother Shawna Carter said on a fundraising page created Monday to pay for his medical care.
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On Friday morning, Austin Bellamy was pruning a lemon tree when he unknowingly cut down a nest of killer bees.
These insects, also called Africanized bees, are known to be particularly aggressive.
Austin Bellamy’s grandmother and uncle, who were nearby, witnessed the attack without being able to intervene, being swarmed by bees themselves, according to Fox 19.
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“He was screaming, ‘Help! Help me! Help!’, and no one might help him,” his grandmother Phyllis Edwards said.
“I was going to try to climb the ladder to reach Austin,” but “I mightn’t reach it because I was surrounded by bees,” she said.
The young man was stung more than 20,000 times and ingested regarding 30 bees, said Shawna Carter.
Caregivers had to “get bees out of him until Sunday morning,” she told Fox 19.
Doctors believe Austin Bellamy will make a full recovery, according to the local outlet.