Africanised bees attack Berbice pensioner

Sep 13, 2013 News

…woman also badly stung

By Leon Suseran
A 77- year- old pensioner was brutally attacked by hundreds of Africanized Bees a few days ago, and he was indeed lucky to come out of the ordeal alive.

Pensioner Robert La Rose

Robert ‘Robbie’ La Rose was performing a job, slashing the grass in someone’s yard at Glasgow Village, East Bank Berbice around 17:00 hrs on Tuesday when the unimaginable happened. He stated that he heard vibrations of the swarm, but realized too late.
The bees originated from the neighbour Mrs. Jean Jaikissoon’s yard.
“I had to hustle—hundreds of them attacked me and they kept attacking me.”
In spite of the swarm all around him, he still managed to crawl out of the compound, onto the road and into a nearby trench, but the bees did not let up, “and they kept on biting me…biting me.”
The nest was located in the neighbouring yard, just next to an outdoor bathroom.
Car drivers stopped and onlookers stood by helplessly for fear of the swarm turning on them. There were shouts from onlookers, “Throw water! Throw water!” Then one of his nephews, Julian Cort, rushed for a can of ‘Fish’ insecticide spray and threw a lot of water on the man and this caused the swarm to let go of him. “He put on a pair of socks, flannel pants and long sleeve shirt with a hat and he was able to lift me and put me into a car,” he said.
La Rose was rushed to the Emergency Room at the N/A Hospital, and part two of the struggle began there. Hundreds of stings were removed, but as related by his close friend, Ian Carter, it was relatives and close friends who had to remove most of the stings due to the fact that the nurses at the N/A Hospital could not locate tweezers and had no knowledge to remove the stings from the man’s head and other parts of the body.
Mr. Carter, in speaking to this newspaper, was upset at the treatment his friend received. The victim is still feeling a bit dizzy.
“After searching a couple of wards, we were able to get a tweezer,” Carter stated. La Rose’s nephew, Julian, was still picking out stings from his uncle’s body on Wednesday… hundreds of stings, “and he [Julian] said there were still more and he mentioned the worry of leaving the stings in his body.”
Carter went on to explain that “it was a situation where you got to have knowledge where to look for the sting and discern where they are… He[ Mr. La Rose] had a great relief, but Julian said that there were more.”
Carter said that he was frantically searching for a tweezer and spoke to several; nurses “who left home their tweezers… and some who did not have tweezers.” It was not until he met a nurse whom he knew who tried her utmost to acquire the tool “but we were here for hours and then a couple of nurses got together there and they were looking, but no nurse came and showed concern, and even if they did not know the method of taking out the sting, they could have come around the bedside and learned, but nobody came.”
After Cort removed over 200 stings from the man’s body, Carter showed the nurses. He believes the hospital’s service could have been better.

Jean Jaikissoon, in whose yard the nest was found.

“This was supposed to be care and attention and it wasn’t evident.”
“I am of the opinion that the work we were doing was the work of the nurses.”
Mr. La Rose stated that while he has encountered bees before, he had never experienced an attack of this magnitude.
“I had a terrible experience and it was vicious—I won’t like anybody to get an experience like this.” He believes that he could have lost his life as a result of the gruesome attack.
“I won’t like something like this to happen to my worst enemy or an ordinary man.”
La Rose stated that he is still experiencing mild pain, perhaps from the remaining stings in his body. Once La Rose is released from the hospital, Cort will remove the remaining stings.
He claimed that Mrs. Jaikisoon knew about the nest. She was also badly stung and rushed to the N/A Hospital where she continues to be a patient. Her face is badly swollen.
When asked by this newspaper, Mrs. Jaikisoon, who could hardly speak, stated that she did not know there was a bee nest in her yard. According to La Rose, the nest will be destroyed today.

2 thoughts on “Africanised bees attack Berbice pensioner”

Cockspur September 13, 2013 at 9:17 am

I really do not like this term Africanized bee attacking persons.

Why does everything bad have to be either Black as in blackout or Africanized bee as in the killer bees?

Come on man we have to stop this attack on the black brotherhood in this country.
1. BJAGDEO September 14, 2013 at 5:36 pm
  
  This is not to insult black people.
  These bees escape from Africa while an experiment was going on, and that is why they are called Africanized bees
  That is what they are called here in the USA.