“Snakeman” survives over 800 bee stings

He is known as the snakeman, but it was not one of his reptilian friends that sent fifty-nine year old Reynaldo Smith to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital. Instead, a huge swarm of angry bees viciously attacked the popular character around four-thirty on Thursday evening as he was trimming a plum tree situated in the backyard of Spooner’s Photo Lab on North Front Street.

Jacqueline Woods, Reporting
Today, despite a throbbing sensation in his left ear, Smith, who was stung over eight hundred times on his face, hands, and back, appeared to have made a remarkable recovered from the painful ordeal.

Reynaldo Smith, Survived Bee Attack
?I got something like eight hundred and sixty-four bites in all. That?s from all the, you know when the bees bite you they leave the stinger in you, all my hands were covered with stingers, they had to pluck them out of my face, head, chest, back. I did not have on a shirt and they covered me completely. Everything was biting.?

Smith says he had climbed the tree to cut some branches and did not see the bees.

Reynaldo Smith
?Mister Spooner had ask me to cut down this tree here and the plum tree to the back because off the plum tree you can climb up and go through his back window, so he ask me to cut it off. But I didn?t notice that under the eave, there was a big hive under the eave. When I cut off one of the limbs it broke through the hive and the bees attack.?

As Smith was stung relentlessly, he fell from the tree, breaking his eyeglasses and wrist watch in the process, as well as suffering a minor injury to his hand. Smith said he had no choice but to jump into the nearby river.

Reynaldo Smith
?But in the water the bees just hover the water waiting for me to come up. As I came up, they began to attack me, so I kept going down and going further out in the river and they kept following. So I decided that I can?t stay in the river and I would make a break, a dash out on the land. So I dash out and they kept following me; some came around here, some came from the front, behind me. I was all in the street running and trying to brush them off.?

Smith says he became more concerned about other people?s safety than his own. That is why he does not blame one business establishments? decision to close their doors rather than assist him when he approached the store for help.

Reynaldo Smith
?I wanted a spray, no but they had about twelve people buying there in the shop and they didn?t want the bees in there because the bees were following me, covered me. And if I had gone in there, a lot of people would have gotten, you know, so I think they did the right thing.?

Smith finally got rid of the bees by grabbing a shirt, covering his head, and once again jumping back into the river. He was taken to the Karl Heusner Memorial Hospital where he was treated for his injuries. Smith believes he was attacked by a swarm of red hornet bees.