Speaker 1: Today's episode includes information about the death of individuals. If
Speaker 1: this sort of thing upsets you, may suggest you watch
Speaker 1: a movie, maybe something like The Swarm Welcome to Mayhem
Speaker 1: in the Morning with their host Doctor Kindle crowns today's
Speaker 1: episode Buzzkill. As summer approaches and people are outside more
Speaker 1: doing activities in nature, there is an increase in attacks
Speaker 1: by stinging insects. You know them all too well. They're
Speaker 1: the bees, wasps, hornets, and the dreaded fire ants. These
Speaker 1: insects can make a fun summer day turn into a
Speaker 1: miserable nightmare, and for some it can result in death.
Speaker 1: And today's episode, I'm going to be discussing deaths associated
Speaker 1: with stinging insects, so let's get started. It's interesting. In
Speaker 1: the United States, a significantly greater part of the population
Speaker 1: is killed by hornets, wasps, and bees compared to snakes.
Speaker 1: For whatever reason, people are more afraid of snakes in
Speaker 1: nature than stinging insects, and when they see a snake
Speaker 1: they run, but a hornet's nest, No, Instead, they hit
Speaker 1: it with a stick and film it on TikTok. Statistics
Speaker 1: compiled from the United States spanning the years twenty eleven
Speaker 1: to twenty twenty one showed seven hundred and eighty eight
Speaker 1: people were killed by wasps, hornets, or bees, roughly averaging
Speaker 1: seventy two per year, compared to only fifty snake desks
Speaker 1: during this time period. Probably everyone I know, including myself,
Speaker 1: has been stung at least once in their lives. For me,
Speaker 1: I've been stung multiple times, but the worst time occurred
Speaker 1: when I was around ten. It was late summer and
Speaker 1: my dad was mowing the lawn when he hit the
Speaker 1: edge of a yellow jacket's nest that was in the ground.
Speaker 1: The yellow jackets quickly came out and swarmed. My Dad
Speaker 1: abandoned the mower, ran inside, and he only got stung twice.
Speaker 1: He waited until dark to retrieve the mower and told
Speaker 1: my brother and I to avoid this area in the
Speaker 1: yard until winter, because then the yellow jackets would all
Speaker 1: die out and it would be safe again. Later in
Speaker 1: that week, when my brother and I were alone in
Speaker 1: the house as we often were, he said to me
Speaker 1: that he had gone hold of a spray that could
Speaker 1: kill the yellow jackets, and then he told me you
Speaker 1: can be a hero by going out there and killing
Speaker 1: them all. He said to me, Mom and Dad would
Speaker 1: be so impressed with that take charge attitude and more
Speaker 1: than likely would reward me. I was all for this,
Speaker 1: an opportunity to prove how brave I was and get
Speaker 1: a reward. I said, give me the spray I'll do it,
Speaker 1: in which my brother said, if you want to kill
Speaker 1: them all, you have to spray deep in the nest
Speaker 1: and show no remorse. How do I do that, I asked.
Speaker 1: He said, with this, and he produced a large double
Speaker 1: headed axe the Forbidden Acts that I had seen many
Speaker 1: times in the garage. It looked like a medieval weapon,
Speaker 1: and I had been told several times not to touch it.
Speaker 1: And there my brother was holding the axe in front
Speaker 1: of me, and he sat first whacked the nest with
Speaker 1: this axe, and then started spraying into the gap that
Speaker 1: was created. I thought that was easy. Plus I get
Speaker 1: to wheel the axe like a Viking. I told my
Speaker 1: brother I was all for it. He handed me the
Speaker 1: axe and the spray can. The spray can was a
Speaker 1: short silver can with remnants of a paper label on it,
Speaker 1: but no information. I didn't think anything about it. I
Speaker 1: marched out of the house with my weapons axe in
Speaker 1: one hand, spray can in the other. My brother didn't
Speaker 1: accompany me, but instead stayed in the house watching from
Speaker 1: a window. In my head, I thought coward. I approached
Speaker 1: the area where the nest was placed, the spray can
Speaker 1: on the ground, took the axe with both hands and
Speaker 1: swung it, striking the nest dead center. I could hear
Speaker 1: the yellow jackets angrily buzzing. I dropped the axe quickly
Speaker 1: and picked up the can and started spraying the first
Speaker 1: yellow ji that came out of the gap that I
Speaker 1: had created. I sprayed them down, saturating their wings, causing
Speaker 1: them to fall out of the air, but it didn't
Speaker 1: kill them. More came streaming out, and I continued frantically
Speaker 1: spraying as they flew through the air. There was just
Speaker 1: too many of them, and they were mad, and they
Speaker 1: were definitely on a seek and destroy mission, and their
Speaker 1: target was me. I was stung the first time on
Speaker 1: my arm, then another stinging on my shoulder. I realized
Speaker 1: the spray wasn't working at this point, and I ran,
Speaker 1: dropping the spray can along the way. As I was
Speaker 1: running into the house, being stung several more times. I
Speaker 1: could see my brother in the window and he was laughing.
Speaker 1: When I got into the garage, I brushed the remaining
Speaker 1: yellow jackets off of me, and then ran into the house.
Speaker 1: I told my brother that spray didn't work, and he said,
Speaker 1: of course it didn't, you idiot. It was my old
Speaker 1: right guard, the odoran spray. He then said, you better
Speaker 1: not tell mom and dad, because you know you weren't
Speaker 1: supposed to touch that axe had me there. I cleaned up,
Speaker 1: and my brother told me to put ice on the
Speaker 1: sting sites. Luckily, I had no reaction to the stings
Speaker 1: other than the pain and a little redness. Once again,
Speaker 1: I survived yet another one of my brother's great ideas,
Speaker 1: and unfortunately that was not the last time I succumbed
Speaker 1: to them. I never told my parents what happened, and
Speaker 1: after that, every time I smelled the smell of Reichguard
Speaker 1: in the middle school locker room, all I could think
Speaker 1: of was those stinking yellow jackets and how gullible I was.
Speaker 1: Yellow Jackets are part of the order of insects known
Speaker 1: as Hymenoptera. Insects in this order are common worldwide. It
Speaker 1: is the second largest order of insects, with approximately seventy
Speaker 1: families in eighteen thousand species in North America. The only
Speaker 1: insect group that is bigger is the order Coleoptera, which
Speaker 1: is beetles. All stinging insects belong to this order, and
Speaker 1: the stinging insects who were discussing today are in three
Speaker 1: main families, and these are Apidae, which are bees, Vespidae,
Speaker 1: which are wasps and hornets, and form a Cidae, which
Speaker 1: are fire ants. All the members of these families have
Speaker 1: some sort of stinging apparatus at the tip of their abdomen.
Speaker 1: The stinger itself is a modified egg laying apparatus, which
Speaker 1: means that only the female insects can sting. They puncture
Speaker 1: the skin with the hollow stinger and inject the venom.
Speaker 1: The amount of venom injected is different based on the insect.
Speaker 1: The pain caused by the sting has a rating system
Speaker 1: which is called the Schmidt pain Index. It was created
Speaker 1: by an American entomologist by the name of Justin O. Schmidt.
Speaker 1: He documented the varying degrees of pain he experienced from
Speaker 1: species of bees, wasps, hornets, and ants. In the course
Speaker 1: of his career, he was stung more than a thousand times.
Speaker 1: He classified the sting pains on a scale of one
Speaker 1: to four, with four being the most painful. He also
Speaker 1: had very colorful descriptions of the stings for each of
Speaker 1: these insects. For level one, Schmidt described this as very mild,
Speaker 1: temporary pain, lasting up to five minutes. One of the
Speaker 1: descriptions of this level was for red fire ants, and
Speaker 1: it is as follows, sharp, sudden, mildly alarming, like walking
Speaker 1: across the shag carpet and reaching for the light switch.
Speaker 1: Level one insects include fire ants, small bees with a
Speaker 1: small stinger, and small wasps. The next level is level two,
Speaker 1: which is moderate pain, lasting up to five to ten minutes.
Speaker 1: He describes a honey bee sting at this level as
Speaker 1: burning corrosive, but you can handle it. A flaming matchhead
Speaker 1: lands on your arm and it is quenched with lye
Speaker 1: and then with sulfuric acid. Insects found in this level
Speaker 1: are honey bees, yellow jackets, and bald faced hornets, among others.
Speaker 1: Level three lasts longer, up to a half hour, and
Speaker 1: it feels far worse. Schmidt describes the pain inflicted by
Speaker 1: an insect at this level, known as the velvet ant,
Speaker 1: as explosive, long lasting. You sound in as you scream
Speaker 1: hot oil from deep fryar spilling over your entire hand.
Speaker 1: Insects in this section include the velvet ant, which I've
Speaker 1: only seen here in Texas, as well as the red
Speaker 1: paper wasp. For the highest level level four, the pain
Speaker 1: can last up to two hours and can even cause
Speaker 1: brief paralysis. One of the descriptions at this level is
Speaker 1: from the tarantula hawk, which I have seen here in
Speaker 1: Texas when my kids caught one in a mason jar.
Speaker 1: When I saw what it was, I made them all
Speaker 1: go into the house, tipped it over, and ran as
Speaker 1: fast as I could. Schmidt described the pain from a
Speaker 1: transla hawk as blinding, fierce, shockingly electric a running hair
Speaker 1: dryer has just been dropped into your bubble bat. Insects
Speaker 1: in this section include the bullet ant, warrior wasp, and,
Speaker 1: as I said, the tarantula hawk. Needless to say, these
Speaker 1: stings from these insects can be quite painful. It just
Speaker 1: depends on what you run into, and I know I
Speaker 1: don't want to be stung by anything above level two.
Speaker 1: There are over one million stings per year by hornets, wasps,
Speaker 1: and bees in the United States. Fire Ants are in
Speaker 1: a category all by themselves because they sting even more
Speaker 1: often easily exceeding a million stings per year. There's not
Speaker 1: a place you can go anywhere in the United States
Speaker 1: where you can find one of these insects, and more
Speaker 1: than two million Americans are allergic to them. Their stings
Speaker 1: account for five hundred thousand emergency room visits per year,
Speaker 1: with the majority only being minor reactions. In the United States,
Speaker 1: the honey bee causes the most deaths, but fire ants
Speaker 1: cause the most allergic reactions, and this is partially due
Speaker 1: to their highly aggressive tendencies and more people running into them.
Speaker 1: Stings have a distinct seasonal pattern dictated by the insects
Speaker 1: annual life cycle. As spring arrives and the temperatures consistently
Speaker 1: get above fifty degrees fahrenheit, the queen emergence from dormancy
Speaker 1: and begins to lay eggs. Summer sees rapid growth of
Speaker 1: the colony, Foraging activity and worker populations peak, particularly in July.
Speaker 1: New workers take over maintaining the nests and hunting and foraging.
Speaker 1: As fall begins, especially in September, the nest reaches maximum size,
Speaker 1: Activity becomes more intense, and the insects become more aggressive.
Speaker 1: As the resources and foods begin to become more scarce,
Speaker 1: and because of this, the insects begin expanding their foraging territory,
Speaker 1: looking in trash cans, and that's when they also start
Speaker 1: interacting more with human beings and they start hovering around
Speaker 1: sugary drinks and things of that nature. By winter, most
Speaker 1: of the workers die and the newly fertilized queens go
Speaker 1: into hibernation to start the cycle over. So, as you
Speaker 1: can tell, most stings peak in late summer and early fall,
Speaker 1: especially through the months of August to October, and the
Speaker 1: people stung the most are once again males, because male
Speaker 1: do a lot of stupid things. Hey, it's just who
Speaker 1: we are. Wow wow. And that brings us to our
Speaker 1: first case. He was an eighty one year old obese
Speaker 1: mail He had a history of diabetes that was so
Speaker 1: severe that he had had bilateral below the knee amputations.
Speaker 1: He used to love to ride his riding lawnmower, and
Speaker 1: he had had it set up so he could still
Speaker 1: control it with justice hands. His family said he would
Speaker 1: spend all day on it, riding around just enjoying himself
Speaker 1: on their couple of acres of land. On this particular
Speaker 1: day in mid September, he was out driving his lawnmower
Speaker 1: like he always did. He was actually mowing for once
Speaker 1: when he hit an underground nest of some sort of
Speaker 1: insect that came out and swarmed him and started attacking
Speaker 1: and stinging him. He started driving radically, waving to his
Speaker 1: family in the house for help because he had no
Speaker 1: life and he couldn't escape. He drove close to the
Speaker 1: house and went past the window, waving his hands and yelling,
Speaker 1: and his family waved back because they thought he was
Speaker 1: just having a good time. He eventually turned and fell
Speaker 1: off his lawnmower. When the family saw that, they realized
Speaker 1: something was wrong, and when they went outside, the insects
Speaker 1: swarmed on them and started stinging them, and they realized
Speaker 1: what they had been witnessing all along was not him
Speaker 1: having fun, but him being stun They were horrified. They
Speaker 1: dragged his body into the house and called nine one one,
Speaker 1: but it was too late. He was already dead. When
Speaker 1: the death investigators arrived to the scene, they got stung
Speaker 1: as well, but they were able to identify the attackers
Speaker 1: and it was bees. When I performed the autopsy, he
Speaker 1: had over a hundred stings on his body and there
Speaker 1: were multiple stingers still embedded in him. They were on
Speaker 1: his hands, his armpits, his chest, his back, his abdomen,
Speaker 1: his legs. They were even inside his nose, and there
Speaker 1: were stings in his mouth, along the tongue, in the
Speaker 1: back of his throat. He had diffuse swelling of his
Speaker 1: body and his mouth structures. The tongue and the throat
Speaker 1: were markedly swollen, constricting his airway. He also had palmery,
Speaker 1: congestion and edema with mucus plugging of the bronchi. His
Speaker 1: cause of death was anaphylactic shock due to the bee stings.
Speaker 1: Men are death accident because he didn't mean to hit
Speaker 1: the hive. Identifying the type of insect is very important
Speaker 1: in these type of cases. Bees, wasps, and hornets can
Speaker 1: look alike, but how do you distinguish them. First off,
Speaker 1: bees are fuzzy with round bodies, whereas wasps and hornets
Speaker 1: are sleek, shiny, and hairless with narrow, pinched waists. Wasps
Speaker 1: are generally smaller and often have yellow black markings like
Speaker 1: yellow jackets, and hornets are larger, usually about two times
Speaker 1: the size of their smaller cousins, the wasps, and have
Speaker 1: black black white markings or black white or reddish brown markings,
Speaker 1: and the thing to remember is all hornets are wasps,
Speaker 1: but not all wasps are hornets. One of the main
Speaker 1: differences between bees, wasps, and hornets is what they eat.
Speaker 1: Bees are omnivores, but they generally collect pollen and nectar
Speaker 1: from flowers and plants for their sources of food, while
Speaker 1: wasps and hornets are predators, collecting insects and other small
Speaker 1: invertebrate prey to feed to their young, and then the
Speaker 1: adults feed on nutritional liquid produced by their young. They
Speaker 1: also feed on sugary substances like nectar, fruit, and fruit juices.
Speaker 1: As far as aggression goes, hornets are the most aggressive,
Speaker 1: followed by wasps and the docile honeybees. A form of
Speaker 1: bee known as killer bees, are actually more like a
Speaker 1: hornet in aggression. The hives for bees and the nests
Speaker 1: for hornets and wasp vary in location. They can be
Speaker 1: up high, like in trees or in the ground, and
Speaker 1: can be small to up to the size of a basketball.
Speaker 1: Wasps and hornet stingers are different than bees. It's more smooth,
Speaker 1: with very fine, tiny barbs that don't stick into the skin.
Speaker 1: It looks kind of like a knife and wasps and
Speaker 1: hornets can sting multiple times, whereas the stinger for bees
Speaker 1: has large barbs on it and it's associated with their
Speaker 1: internal adominal structures. When they sting, the barbs anchor the
Speaker 1: stinger in the skin, and as the bee tries to
Speaker 1: pull away, it rips out its abdominal structures and the
Speaker 1: bee dies. Once detached, the stinger actually continues to pump venom.
Speaker 1: The stingers muscles and nerves continue to rhythmically contract, injecting
Speaker 1: venom for about forty five seconds to several minutes, and
Speaker 1: because of this, bees really don't want to sting you
Speaker 1: because they know they aren't going to survive the experience,
Speaker 1: but they will if they have to defend themselves. Bees
Speaker 1: have the most species located here in the US, and
Speaker 1: they range in size from small, tiny fairy bees to
Speaker 1: large carpenter bees. But when most people think of bees,
Speaker 1: they think of the honey bee, which is not native
Speaker 1: to the United States but was introduced in the seventeenth
Speaker 1: century by Europeans. These bees are typically very docile and
Speaker 1: they only become aggressive if they feel that their hive
Speaker 1: is being attacked, but otherwise, for the most part, they
Speaker 1: don't want to sting you. The other bees that a
Speaker 1: lot of people think of were the bees associated with
Speaker 1: this case, which are killer bees, also known as Africanized honeybees.
Speaker 1: These are hybrid species created by crossing African honeybees and
Speaker 1: European honeybees. Killer bees were produced in Brazil in the
Speaker 1: late nineteen fifties, with the goal being to create a
Speaker 1: more resilient and productive bee species that could thrive in
Speaker 1: Brazil's tropical climate. A few of the bees escaped their
Speaker 1: laboratory home, reproduced, and now killer bees are found in
Speaker 1: many parts of the world. Killer bees are highly defensive
Speaker 1: of their hive. They swarm in great numbers and even
Speaker 1: chase potential threats up to a quarter mile from the hive,
Speaker 1: making them far more aggressive than their European counterparts. They
Speaker 1: respond to threats ten times faster and more aggressively, and
Speaker 1: they release a pheromone which alerts other bees so they
Speaker 1: can coordinate their attack on potential threats, resulting in a
Speaker 1: swarm on a target a matter of seconds. It has
Speaker 1: been noted that with a swarm that can be up
Speaker 1: to ten to fifteen stings per minute, their venom is
Speaker 1: not more deadly than honey bees, but typically there's more
Speaker 1: of it because bees are involved in the attack. Killer
Speaker 1: bees look very similar to honey bees, almost the same,
Speaker 1: just maybe a little bit smaller, and have darker yellow
Speaker 1: to golden hue. The venom produced by bees is similar
Speaker 1: to that produced by wasps and hornets. It's a complex
Speaker 1: mixture of peptides, enzymes, and biologically active amines, but each
Speaker 1: venom has distinctive properties that serve as major allergens in humans.
Speaker 1: In bees, its meleton, which makes up to forty to
Speaker 1: sixty percent of the venom. It causes cells to rupture
Speaker 1: and also causes pain and inflammation. For wasp and hornets,
Speaker 1: they have antigen five, which is the main cause of
Speaker 1: agent in allergic reactions to their stings. All the venoms
Speaker 1: have histamine in them. It causes vasodilation, leakage of fluid
Speaker 1: into the tissue, as well as itching, redness, swelling, and
Speaker 1: pain associated with the bite. It's also produced by cells
Speaker 1: in the body known as mass cells, and is released
Speaker 1: as part of their response to the allergen, and we'll
Speaker 1: go into that a little further later. It is possible
Speaker 1: to die from a direct poisoning from the venom, but
Speaker 1: this is rare, but When it does happen, it is
Speaker 1: known as toxic venom overload or a systemic toxic reaction.
Speaker 1: A high volume of stings, which is about ten stings
Speaker 1: per pound of body weight or anything over a thousand,
Speaker 1: results in symptoms after a few minutes to hours, which
Speaker 1: include severe burning at the injection sites, headache, dizziness, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea,
Speaker 1: and a dominal pain which progresses after days to hemolytic anemia,
Speaker 1: which means your red blood cells are rupturing. But when
Speaker 1: there is a massive venom load seen with over five
Speaker 1: hundred and two one thousand stings or thirty to fifty
Speaker 1: in a child, you can get a cute kidney failure
Speaker 1: followed by multi organ failure and death. But that didn't
Speaker 1: happen in this case. Instead, he died from anaphylaxis. Anaphylaxis
Speaker 1: can be mild or severe and goes through four stages.
Speaker 1: Stage one, or mild anaphylaxis, involves symptoms that occur within
Speaker 1: minutes to a few hours after the exposure to the allergen.
Speaker 1: It's usually seen with a skin rash, redness, itching, hives,
Speaker 1: or even a running nose. Stage two, which is moderate
Speaker 1: anaphylaxis you begin to see widespread hives all over the
Speaker 1: body with itching and mild swelling. The lips and tongue
Speaker 1: also begin to swell and there is difficulties swallowing. Typically,
Speaker 1: at this stage, epinephrine should be administered. Stage three, or
Speaker 1: an athe phylactic shock, is characterized by severe symptoms, usually
Speaker 1: difficulty breathing, extensive swelling, weak pulse, dizziness, and a drop
Speaker 1: in blood pressure. At this point, your own body's inflammatory
Speaker 1: response is beginning to affect your vital organs such as
Speaker 1: your lungs and heart, and it is a medical emergency.
Speaker 1: Epinephorn is usually administered, but the person experiencing this should
Speaker 1: go to the emergency room. The final stage is life
Speaker 1: threatening anaphylaxis. The individual loses consciousness and experiences severe airway
Speaker 1: constriction as well as having inadequate blood flow to vital organs,
Speaker 1: and this can result in cardiac arrest and death. In
Speaker 1: this situation, the person definitely needs to go to the hospital.
Speaker 1: Fifty percent of deaths from anaphylaxis occur within the first
Speaker 1: thirty minutes, and seventy five percent of deaths occur within
Speaker 1: four hours. At autopsy, the findings we see are swelling,
Speaker 1: of the tongue and throat structures, hyperinflated lungs, pulmony congestion,
Speaker 1: and dema with mucus plugging of the airways. Microscopically, there's
Speaker 1: an increased presence of a particular cell seen in the
Speaker 1: tissue known as mass cells, which are markers of an
Speaker 1: allergic reaction. Among other things. Their role is to release
Speaker 1: mediators upon detecting a pathogen or alogen, recruiting other immune cells,
Speaker 1: and also releasing histamine and triptase. Histamine we've already talked about,
Speaker 1: and it has the same effects as what occurs with
Speaker 1: the insect venom. Triptase also promotes inflammation, recruits more immune cells,
Speaker 1: and increases the number of mass cells. Triptase can be
Speaker 1: a useful marker that we use when we do laboratory
Speaker 1: testing at the time of autopsy to help prove it's
Speaker 1: actually an allergic reaction and not something else. Other markers
Speaker 1: that we can use are looking for histamine levels in IgE,
Speaker 1: which is an antibody that plays a central role in
Speaker 1: allergic reactions. With IgE, we look for venom specific antibodies
Speaker 1: if we know what's stung them, and that's why it's
Speaker 1: important to get the actual NCT involved in the incident.
Speaker 1: The laboratory tests helped confirm the fact that the person
Speaker 1: died from anaphylexis due to the specific stinging insect found
Speaker 1: at the scene. So to get the cause of death,
Speaker 1: it's a combination of autopsy findings and laboratory tests. Wow. Finally,
Speaker 1: the last stinging insect I'm going to discuss is fire ants.
Speaker 1: Fire Ants were imported from South America accidentally and introduced
Speaker 1: in the United States in the nineteen thirties through a
Speaker 1: port in Mobile, Alabama. They likely arrived and the soil
Speaker 1: used as ballast on a cargo ship. After that, fire
Speaker 1: ants spread rapidly, and today their territory includes Alabama, Arkansas, California, Florida, Georgia,
Speaker 1: South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, with sporadic occurrences occurring
Speaker 1: in Kentucky, Kansas, and Missouri. A typical fire ant colony
Speaker 1: produces large mounds and open areas and feeds mostly on
Speaker 1: young plants, insects, and seeds. They often will attack small
Speaker 1: animals such as live lizards, and can kill them. The
Speaker 1: venom is different than bees, wasps, and hornets and is
Speaker 1: primarily composed of sulenopsins, which is a water soluble alkaloid
Speaker 1: that causes burning, pain, redness, swelling, and inching, and it
Speaker 1: is the main cause of allergic reactions and can result
Speaker 1: in death. Workers usually use their mandibles to bite anchor
Speaker 1: to the skin and then pivot stinging repeatedly injecting venom
Speaker 1: in a circular pattern. When a fire ant mount is disturbed,
Speaker 1: which can be something as innocuous as footsteps, it can
Speaker 1: elicit an aggressive response. Fire Ants are highly territorial and
Speaker 1: defensive and will respond immediately with a coordinated attack. When
Speaker 1: the threat is detected, they release pheromones, signaling and mobilizing
Speaker 1: the colony into a massive, coordinated assault. Hundreds or even
Speaker 1: thousands of ais can pour out in seconds, and their
Speaker 1: swarm behavior is designed to overwhelm and deter threats. I
Speaker 1: have had one case where there was a massive number
Speaker 1: of fire ant bites found on the person. She was
Speaker 1: an eighty year old female who wandered away from the
Speaker 1: nursing home that she was staying at. She had dementia
Speaker 1: and heart disease. She was dressed in pajamas and when
Speaker 1: they found her, her body was overlying a fire ant mound.
Speaker 1: She was covered in thousands of ants and amphites, which
Speaker 1: were these little red circular abrasions that were all over
Speaker 1: her chest, back, arms, and face. When I did her autopsy,
Speaker 1: she still had fire ants on her and they got
Speaker 1: on my gloves and began biting and trying to sting me,
Speaker 1: but were thwarted by the layers of latex. We had
Speaker 1: to clean and scrub them off to get rid of
Speaker 1: them before we continued with the autopsy, and I really
Speaker 1: hate fire ants. Internally, she had no signs of anaphylaxis.
Speaker 1: I had further testing done looking for trip tastes, which
Speaker 1: came back negative. But what she did have internally was
Speaker 1: the findings of heart disease. She had an enlarged heart
Speaker 1: and bad cornary arteries, so the thought was she possibly
Speaker 1: fell onto the fire ant hill while having a heart
Speaker 1: attack and died before the ants could even attack. But
Speaker 1: the ants continued to bite her even though she was dead,
Speaker 1: and we do see this occasionally in bodies found outside.
Speaker 1: Ants come up and begin feeding on the body like
Speaker 1: other scavengers. Cause of death was determined to be athroscratic
Speaker 1: cardiovascar disease or a heart attack. Manner was natural, so
Speaker 1: in closing. When you're out there enjoying the nice weather
Speaker 1: of spring, summer, and fall, be mindful of the bees, wasps, hornets,
Speaker 1: and fire ants just as you would a snake, because
Speaker 1: they can kill you. Two And that brings us to
Speaker 1: the end of the episode. I hope you were entertained,
Speaker 1: and I hope you learned something until the next time.