Man Stung By 20,000 Killer Bees Awakens From Coma

An Ohio man who landed in a coma after being stung by thousands of killer bees when he accidentally sawed their hive in half has awakened, according to a report.

Austin Bellamy, 20, of Ripley, nearly died after getting stung up to 20,000 times Friday. He was put on a ventilator and into a medically induced coma after the attack, but awakened Wednesday, according to Fox 19. The bees nearly killed Bellamy after he cut into their nest while trimming a lemon tree.

“When he started cutting them, that’s when the bees came out, and he tried to anchor himself down, and he couldn’t,” Bellamy’s grandma, Phyllis Edwards, told the outlet. “He was hollering, ‘Help! Help me! Help!’ And nobody would help him.”

Austin Bellamy’s GoFundMe page explains that the young man was stung by African killer bees ‘over 20,000 times’ on August 27, 2022 ‘in a tragic tree accident’ https://t.co/r0NR9iG2r6

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Edwards said she and her husband, Dustin, saw it all happen from the ground but couldn’t get to Bellamy because of the swarm.

“I was going to try and climb the ladder to get to Austin… I seen how high he was… but I couldn’t get to him because I was surrounded in bees,” she said.

Bellamy’s mother, Shawna Carter, said her son’s injuries were horrifying.

“It looked like he had a black blanket on his head down to his neck, down to his arms,” she said.

A GoFundMe page set up for Bellamy says he was stung more than 20,000 times and swallowed at least 30 of the bees.

“So he had bees inside of him, and they suctioned bees out of him until Sunday morning,” wrote Carter, who established the page.

Bellamy is expected to make a full recovery.

Killer bees, or Africanized honey bees, are an invasive species were first discovered in the U.S. in 1990. They are far more aggressive than other bees, especially when their hives are disturbed. Swarms have been known to chase people for long distances, and an estimated 1,000 humans have been killed by them. Their sting is no more potent than other varieties, but their collective ferocity can be lethal.