Vegas Woman Critically Hurt in Attack by Bees
A 77-year-old woman lay in critical condition Tuesday after being stung more than 500 times by a swarm of killer bees.
The woman, whose name was not released, was attacked while walking along a street a few blocks from her Las Vegas home, Fire Department spokesman Tim Szymanski said. He said the bees may have been drawn to something in a bag she was carrying.
Firefighters wearing special gear doused the woman with water to get about 200 bees off her. Two police officers were stung trying to rescue her.
Hospital personnel used tweezers and duct tape to pull the stingers from her body.
The state Agriculture Department confirmed that the bees were Africanized bees, commonly known as killer bees because of the way they attack in swarms.
It was the second recent attack in the Las Vegas area. On Feb. 9, a 79-year-old man was stung about 30 times. He survived.
Africanized bees have killed an estimated 1,000 people as they migrated northward from Brazil beginning in 1957.
The first swarm was reported in the United States in Texas in 1990.
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