A 70-year-old Texas man was reportedly killed by a massive swarm of bees as he was mowing his lawn — and his wife was hospitalized after being stung while performing CPR on him.
Thomas Hicks, of Breckenridge, was attacked Monday afternoon and ran inside his home to alert his wife with the killer insects still in pursuit, KGNS reported.
Hicks’ wife, Zoni, said she had just left to shop for groceries when he began to mow the yard.
“I said, ‘Honey, please don’t go back in the back area, because those bees are back there’ — and he said, “I won’t. I promise,’” she told www.bigcountryhomepage.com.
Zoni returned to find her husband jumping and screaming while covered with the bees.
“I mean, you couldn’t even see his back and his whole head — he was just covered in killer bees,” said Zoni, who frantically called 911 just before her husband collapsed.
“I had to do CPR until they got here, and when they got here they worked on him for over an hour and they realized that they couldn’t bring him back so I had to let him go,” she told the news outlet.
Zoni was treated at a hospital after also being stung in the deadly attack.
Fire Chief Calvin Chaney said the noise from Hicks’ lawnmower likely triggered the bees to go on the attack.
Joey Venekamp, a beekeeper who responded to the scene, found several hives containing about 60,000 honey bees in a nearby tree, KGNS reported.
Venekamp subdued the bees with soap and water before removed the hives.
“Once one of them stings it’s going to let off a pheromone and that’s like a red flag to the other ones…best thing to do is take cover,” he told http://www.bigcountryhomepage.com.
Zoni expressed her gratitude for first responders for doing everything they could to try and save her husband.