Bees sting man into hospital

Ofelia Cocom

A family from the Orange Walk district is lucky to be alive after they were stung by killer bees on Wednesday evening. Ofelia Cocom has lived near the Palmar/Boundary Road for over forty-six years, but an experience has left her fearing for her life and the safety of her family. Her common-law husband, eighty nine year old Rigoberto Leiva, was picking avocados in the back yard with a friend at about four o’clock when they were attacked by a swarm of killer bees in the tree. Cocom was at home about twenty feet away with her daughter and grandchild when it happened, and all were stung by the bees, including the chickens in the yard.

Ofelia Cocom, Stung by Bees

“I was right inside here when my daughter said – Mr. Leiva is coming. So when I came out to see – we were sitting right here on this sofa. When I saw the boy run with the wasps behind him and from that they started to sting us and we didn’t know what was happening. I don’t know where the little old man went, if he went this way or that way, but they told me they had him under the pipe. They were giving him water. I got lost until I got to my grandson’s house and they took me and started to clear my hair from the wasps. So everyone got stung. The first thing that came in here was the fire pump man and then the ambulance. When the ambulance arrived they took him to the hospital – both of them. When they took him he was trembling because he was stung too much.”

Reporter

“But he was conscious? He was awake?”

Ofelia Cocom

“Yes…he was awake.”

Reporter

“Do you feel a little afraid to live here now…with kids around?”

Ofelia Cocom

“Yes I am afraid because we don’t know what can happen, because yesterday three of us could have died in a minute and nobody would have known what happened. But thank God and I praise the Lord that nothing happened to us.”

Leiva was treated at the Northern Regional Hospital and released. Cocom was stung all over her chest, but claims when she went to the Northern Regional Hospital she was told there was nothing they could do for her, so she went back home. Officials from the Ministry of Agriculture visited the home after the incident and destroyed the bees by burning the tree.