A MOTHER’S swift and selfless act to ward off hundreds of bees saved her two children from a near fatal attack in Empangeni on Friday morning.
Sustaining more than 250 stings to the head and body, Chantelle Snyman (33) took off her own clothes in a desperate attempt to protect her daughters Talia (4) and Lianè (2) from an aggressive swarm of bees.
The incident took place just before 7am on Higgs Road outside a pre-primary school where Snyman had dropped off her toddlers.
‘My sister normally walks her children to school and I then pick her up,’ said Tanya Oosthuizen.
‘However, when I arrived at the school, all of their belongings including slops, shoes and bags were strewn across the yard. I cannot explain what was going through my mind at that moment. I thought they had been abducted or mugged. I tried calling my sister to no avail,’ Oosthuizen told the Zululand Observer.
But the mother and two toddlers had been confronted by a hostile bee colony lodged in a tree.
‘My sister then took off her top to cover the girls and told them to run. But Lianè refused to leave her mum and held on to her leg tightly. Chantelle screamed helplessly – ‘please help my children’ as hundreds of bees attacked her. Talia ran as fast as she could,’ Oosthuizen explained.
Fortunately, a neighbour heard the desperate shouts for help and told them to jump into his pool as the swarm was still following the family.
After a frantic search, Oosthuizen soon found her sister and nieces at the nearby home.
‘They were wet and shivering. We rushed them to Life Empangeni Garden Clinic, where doctors tried to stabilise them and remove hundreds of barbed stingers embedded in their head and body. All three of them were vomiting and were traumatised,’ Oosthuizen said.
The family was subsequently discharged from hospital on Saturday afternoon.
‘They are doing well. The girls are still shaken up and are afraid to go outside or back to school.’
Honey
Bee handler, Hester Fraser of Hive Honey in Richards Bay said there could have been honey in the hive, which led to the bees’ aggressive nature towards the family.
‘The bees probably thought they were under attack and will do anything to protect their honey. Once one bee stings, a scent is released which signals to the other bees that they are being attacked. Jumping into the pool is the best way to ward off the bees as they cannot see you anymore,’ Fraser said.
