‘They just came straight up at me’: Tree trimmer stung over 100 times by bees near Ocala, falls 30 feet to the ground

By Nicole Linsalata and Rubén Rosario

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    BREVARD COUNTY, Florida (WSVN) — A Florida man set off an angry swarm of bees while trimming trees, a frightening encounter that went from from bad to worse when the entire hive went on the attack while the victim was stuck 30 feet in the air.

A picture shows just how high Jon Christian was off the ground on Wednesday when he hit a bee hive during a post-hurricane tree trimming job near Ocala.

“They just came straight up at me, and I couldn’t get them off of me,” he said.

“A souvenir of the honeycomb from the colony that almost killed my husband,” said Christian’s wife as she held the memento placed in a clear plastic bag.

Christian, who lives in Brevard County, said he accidentally hit a switch, and that got him stuck in his bucket truck. As the bees kept stinging him.

“I just started hollering ‘help,’ and somebody said ‘jump,’ so I took off out the side of the machine,” he said. “I fell 30 feet, and I hit the roof and then rolled off the roof to the ground, and them things just kept coming at me.”

Christian not only survived the vicious bee attack but the fall as well.

The rest of his crew pulled him away from the swarm and rushed him to the hospital.

“I had no broken bones, no internal bleeding, and whatever they treated me with at the hospital, it’s a miracle, because the swelling went away,” he said.

Christian said he’s known of his bee allergy since he was a teen, adding he was stung about 120 times — nearly half of them on his head.

“According to the beehive guy, when he got here to remove them and stuff, he says, he told me, ‘So many of these stories end up in tragedy,’” he said.

Grant Thomas, a bee removal worker near Orlando, believes these weren’t European honey bees that nearly took Christian’s life but actually killer bees.

“Their comb throughout the whole thing was extremely dark in color. There was no honey on it whatsoever,” said Thomas, “and, you know, typically, whenever you get attacked by bees — or, I should say, get stung by bees — you’ve got three or four stings. You don’t get hit hundreds of times, and they were just in his hair and just all over him.”

Christian said he is grateful to be alive and thankful his co-workers quickly removed him from the life-threatening situation.

“The doctor said that I either had superhuman strength, or I’m the luckiest person in the world, but whichever case it is, stop and play the lottery,” he said.

Christian went home from the hospital Friday afternoon. He said he’s already ordered bee suits in case his tree-trimming crew encounter another angry swarm.

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