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posted by martyb on Tuesday July 17 2018, @06:09AM   Printer-friendly
from the real-time,-real-life-debugging dept.

KTLA, TV Channel 5 in Southern California, reports

A woman was critically injured after being stung "hundreds of times" by a swarm of bees in Lake Forest [South Orange County] Monday morning [July 16], and three others--including two firefighters--were also injured, officials said.

[...] "Units arrived on scene and they found her basically completely covered with bees from head to toe", Fire Authority Capt. Tony Bommarito told KTLA.

The swarm was so severe that firefighters didn't have time to put the special safety gear on that they would normally wear while responding to such incidents, according to Bommarito.

"They got out, they started felling the bees, they saw the patient down this cul-de-sac completely covered--her face was completely covered with bees", he said.

They grabbed [a carbon dioxide] extinguisher in an effort to remove the bulk of the bees off of the victim, then "basically dragged" her to a safe area about 200 yards away, according to the fire captain.

"She was basically non-responsive" to firefighter commands, although she could still move, Bommarito said.

The woman, described as being about 50 years old, was stung "hundreds of times", according to a tweet from the Fire Authority. She was taken to a hospital in critical condition.

The firefighters were stung "multiple times" and taken to a hospital in stable condition.

I have seen other stories about humans in SoCal being swarmed by Africanized "killer" bees. (I am assuming that that is what these were.) It makes me wonder how far north these bugs will range before winters get too cold for them--and how much climate change will exacerbate the situation.

Anybody north of L.A.'s latitude had similar reports where you are?


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by crafoo on Tuesday July 17 2018, @01:23PM (2 children)

    by crafoo (6639) on Tuesday July 17 2018, @01:23PM (#708315)

    You should stop mentally projecting human properties onto very simple insects and animals. Bees don't have emotions. They don't have enough neurons to consider their place in the world, the past, and prospective future. They collect pollen and sting shit. That's pretty much it. They aren't people.

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  • (Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @02:30PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 17 2018, @02:30PM (#708336)

    objectively speaking, we don't understand the relation between nervous system organization and intelectual abilities.
    so don't be so dismissive of bees.

  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 17 2018, @04:45PM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 17 2018, @04:45PM (#708409) Journal

    Be careful there. Bees don't have human, or even mammalian, emotions. It's not clear that they don't have analogs to fear and rage (probably others, too). OTOH, they don't have a complex model of the world, either. (It would weigh too much.)

    Still...look ups sphexish. A lot of insect behavior seems to be emotion free. I suspect, however, that this isn't true of social insects.

    --
    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.