Atlasville pensioner critical after bee attack in park

A 76-year-old Atlasville resident is in a critical condition at Tambo Memorial Hospital after being stung by a swarm of bees outside his house, near the corner of Kakelaar Street and Nightingale Road, yesterday (December 26).

The incident happened after Jack Leroy went to cut grass around an electrical box in the Atlas Spruit Park, close to his house, at around 5pm.

According to neighbour Kim Tompsett, who has known Leroy for 18 years, he apparently told his bedridden wife that morning that he needed to cut the grass around the meter box as it was an eyesore.

“Jack, who walks with crutches, went to the park and started trimming the grass with a weedeater not knowing that there were bees inside the meter box. As he cut the grass, the bees swarmed out and attacked him. We assume he hobbled to his driveway and collapsed there while thousands of bees were all over his body,” Tompsett said.

She explained that, luckily, when her husband, Brett, went to the petrol station with their son to buy ice cream he noticed Leroy lying in his driveway and thought he had had a heart attack.

“Brett jumped out of his car and went to see what was happening and that’s when he noticed the bees all over Jack,” Tompsett said.

The traumatised neighbour said CMS medical personnel and a bee keeper responded to the scene, adding it took an hour to get the bees off Leroy in order to get him into an ambulance.

“It was the worst experience I have witnessed in my life; seeing his whole body swollen up. It is very sad that he is now fighting for his life in hospital all because he thought the overgrown grass would cause trouble for the electricity box, hence, he decided to do the work of the municipality,” Tompsett said.

According to Ward 23 and DA Shadow MMC for Environmental Development in Ekurhuleni Andre du Plessis, he has escalated the matter to the parks department.

He said the metro has been dragging its feet on grass cutting in parks despite him and other residents requesting the metro to attend to this numerous times.

“Recently, they sent a tractor to the Atlas Spruit Park, which did half a job and they didn’t finish – and no brushcutters were brought onto site either,” du Plessis said.

“The MMC for environmental resource and waste management, Khosi Mabaso, has not responded to any of my eight previous messages over the past three months.

“It has been over a year now that hardly anything has been done in the Atlas Spruit Park and I will be taking this (the bee attack) up with the city manager.

We specifically asked the metro to cut the grass two weeks ago and that’s when the tractor arrived and no brushcutters. This incident has indirectly been caused by the council neglecting service delivery by reneging on their responsibility to cut the grass in this park.”

ALSO READ: Growth of reeds out of control at Atlasville Spruit

ALSO READ: Almost 600 runners compete in Atlasville Parkrun