Not only was I shocked and saddened by the tragic story you are about to hear in the video below, but I found out something that I never knew. Where I live, yellow jackets appear in huge numbers in August, and I always complain that the “bees” are back. Apparently I, like many others, thought that yellow jackets are “bees”. They look and sting like “meat bees”, but they are actually WASPS!
This is very important to know, because we all love being outdoors during the summer..swimming, barbecuing, taking walks and gardening…but need to be aware and prepared. While bees are generally less aggressive, produce honey and are critical for balancing the eco-system, yellow jackets (wasps) are a different story.
The video tells the story of John who was gardening, and put his hand into a yellow jacket nest in the earth. Yellow jacket stings, as with all wasps, are very painful. I found out one day when I was cutting some flowers from my garden, and unknowingly disturbed a wasp nest. They attacked my face, and within one minute my lips blew up to 5 times their normal size.
Luckily I took 2 Benadryl and was okay after a few hours. John was not so lucky. It is unclear if he had ever been stung by yellow jackets before; he had several bites, lay down and asked his wife for an ice pack to sooth the pain and inflammation.
Within one hour he was dead! He had gone into anaphylactic shock, due to a severe allergic reaction. The truth is that you may have been bitten by wasps previously in life and never had an allergic reaction, but it is quite possible to develop such a severe allergy at any point in your life, and not know it until it is too late. His wife describes what happened and her terrible shock at losing her husband in an instant. The only thing that could have saved him, as his breathing became increasingly difficult, would have been EPINEPHRINE…having an EPI pen in their home.
Please SHARE John’s story with your family and friends; IT COULD SAVE A LIFE!
