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Epileptic badly injured in ‘killer bees’ attack
– rescued by villager after plunging into drain
A 30-year-old epileptic man is still trying to shake off the effects of a near-deadly attack by swarm of Africanised bees at Phase Two, Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo last Tuesday.
Rawle Singh, the victim was badly stung in the face and upper body while walking along a roadway, near some trees in which the swarm had nested.
“They were all over my face and head,” Singh recalled. “When me brushing them, they not coming off.”
The terrified Singh dived into a drain. The bees followed him.
“When I jump in the drain, more (bees) come and attack.”
Singh would almost certainly have been killed had a neighbor, clad in a coat, not rush to his aid and drag him to safety.
He was hospitalized for two days at the West Demerara Regional Hospital. “They say it (the venom) could have turn poisonous. I had to take saline.”
But though he’s been discharged, he has still not shaken off the effects of Tuesday’s ordeal.
“All my face and eyes still swell, and I am not seeing out of my left eye.” His condition had still not improved up to yesterday.
Singh’s mother is worried and is appealing for assistance so her son can receive further treatment at a private hospital, something the impoverished family cannot afford.
Rawle Singh is still to recover from the near fatal attack
Much to the relief of Phase Two residents, the swarm was removed on Thursday after well-known bee-keeper Ernest Younge visited the area. Wearing his protective gear, Younge lit tyres and destroyed the hive. He confirmed that the swarm comprised Africansed bees.
Younge has had many an encounter with the insects, and has seen how lethal they can be. He’s one of the individuals that officials from the Ministry of Agriculture’s Guyana Livestock Developmental Authority (GLDA) contact when the deadly swarms are in an area.
The Africanised bees came about in the late fifties in Brazil, when someone decided to mix the African honey bee with the Italian species.
Research indicates that their venom is no more lethal than that of other honey bees. What makes them much more dangerous is their aggression and the numbers in which they attack. When a few Africanised bees launch an attack, they release a scent that brings out hundreds more, which can pick up the scent from great distances.
Younge is convinced that man is now paying a hefty price for mixing the two species and ‘tampering’ with nature.
“They are dangerous. They don’t like people. Nature has a way of fighting back when you mix it.
“I have seen these bees kill cows, donkeys, horses, people. I go on operations where the people were crying out for mercy (after being stung).
“Twenty-five bees would come out (and attack); then 50, then 75, then thousands.
“I have gone out on emergency situations and saved babies. One time I was at the sea-walls and I got a call that bees were biting up a man in Eccles. The bees were in a ceiling in a GEB (security firm) building. The man was spray-painting (a car) and it affected the bees. The man was in his yard with his wife and kids and they killed him right in his yard.
“I removed the nest and got a tub-full, and two buckets of honey.”
Another time, I passed by a house where a man was minding pit-bulls and told them there were bees in the area and they might be dangerous. He said that he would
deal with it. I passed back sometime later and he said that the bees had killed one of his dogs and that the other one jumped the fence and ran away for three days.” The bee-keeper says he has seen victims vomiting after being stung.
And Young says that plunging into water to escape the bees could be a ‘suicidal’ move, particularly if the victim cannot swim.
“Run into bushes,” Young advised. “Keep running, keep moving.”
Mr. Ernest Younge resides at Mocha Arcadia, East Bank Demerara and can be contacted on: 699-3406.
The hotline for the Guyana Livestock Developmental Authority (GLDA) is 220-6557.
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