Man, 20, fighting for life after swarm of bees sting him 20,000 times
A 20-year-old man remains in a medically-induced coma after getting stung at least 20,000 times by bees.
Austin Bellamy was in a lemon tree trimming branches on Friday morning in Ohio (local time) when he unknowingly cut into a hive of bees, FOX19 reported.
His grandmother Phyllis Edwards and uncle Dustin Edwards were standing below when it happened, unable to scale the ladder because they themselves were under attack.
“When he started cutting them, that’s when the bees came out, and he tried to anchor himself down, and he couldn’t,” Ms Edwards recalled.
“He was hollering, ‘Help! Help me! Help!’ And nobody would help him.
“I was going to try and climb the ladder to get to Austin...but I couldn’t get to him because I was surrounded in bees.”
After being stung, Mr Bellamy looked “like he had a black blanket on his head down to his neck, down to his arms,” according to his mother, Shawna Carter, who passed out when she was told about the incident.
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“It was just too much for me to take,” she said.
Ms Carter said a Ripley Fire Department firefighter named Craig saved her son's life.
“Craig is a life-saver,” Ms said. “He’s Austin’s angel.”
Mr Bellamy was transported by an UC Air Care helicopter to Corryville.
According to an online fundraiser set up by the family for medical expenses, Mr Bellamy was stung at least 20,000 times and ingested around 30 bees.
“He had bees inside of him, and they suctioned bees out of him until Sunday morning,” Ms Carter explained.
He remains on a ventilator in a medically-induced coma at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center.
Doctors say they expect him to make a full recovery, FOX19 reports.
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