Swarm of Bees Kills Student in Costa Rica

A University of Miami graduate student was attacked and stung to death last week by a swarm of Africanized bees while on a field trip in a Costa Rican jungle, officials said Friday.

Inn-Siang Ooi, a 24-year-old Malaysian who was working on his doctorate in biology, died July 31 during a field trip with 11 other students about 100 miles northwest of San Jose.

Ooi was stung about 46 times per square inch of his body in the hours-long attack, said Jay Savage, chairman of the university’s biology department.

Savage said news of the incident did not reach Miami until Thursday, because the area where the attack took place is so remote.

The Miami Herald on Friday quoted Charles Schnell, coordinator for the Organization of Tropical Studies in San Jose, as saying Ooi had been ahead of the rest of the students as they hiked along a steep trail.

Others Attacked

“The others saw a swarm of bees around his head, a cloud,” Schnell said. “At first they climbed toward him, trying to help, but they were attacked too and had to turn back. . . . They could hear his screams, which finally diminished to moans.”

An hour after the initial attack, two of his companions reached Ooi, who was still covered with bees and unconscious, wedged between rocks just inside a small cave. They tried but failed to inject adrenaline, which might have kept Ooi alive, Schnell said.

Their efforts left the two--Claudette Mo of the University of Wisconsin, and Peter Smallwood, a rock-climbing expert from the University of Arizona--covered with hundreds of bee stings, Schnell said. Mo fainted from the attack and later had to be hospitalized, he said.

Body Sent Home

After sunset, when the bees calmed down, four Costa Rican guards pulled Ooi’s body from the rocks. His remains were returned to his family in Malaysia.

After Ooi’s death, the students decided to continue their field trip, school officials said.

Aggressive African bees were first brought to Brazil for study in 1957. Some queens escaped and migrated, breeding with docile honey bees, Savage said.