A Florida man is sharing his remarkable story of survival where he was attacked by a swarm of bees during a tree-trimming job, was stung more than 100 times and fell 30 feet off a bucket truck.
“At one point I just literally gave up cause I was in so much pain cause I couldn't take it anymore,” Jon Christian said.
Christian said he was about 30 feet higher than the roof next to him on Wednesday when he hit a beehive during a post-hurricane tree trimming job in Citrus County.
"They just came straight up at me and I couldn't get them off me," he said.
Christian said he accidentally hit the switch, so he was stuck in his bucket truck, as the bees kept stinging him.
"Somebody said jump, so I took off out the side of the machine,” he said. “I fell 30 feet and I hit the roof and rolled off the roof to the ground and them things just kept coming at me.”
This Florida man not only survived the vicious bee attack but also the fall.
The rest of his crew from All Florida Land Services pulled him away from the swarm and rushed him to the hospital.
“I had no broken bones, no internal bleeding and whatever they treated me with at the hospital, it’s a miracle because the swelling went away,” Christian said.
Christian has known of his bee allergy since he was a teen. He said he was stung some 120 times – 50 of them in the head.
"According to the beehive guy, when he got here to remove them and stuff, he told me so many of these stories end up in tragedy,” Christian said.
Grant Thomas from BeeMan Stan Bee Removal in Polk County said he believes these weren’t European honey bees that nearly took Christian’s life, but rather the killer kind.
"Their comb throughout the whole thing was extremely dark in color,” Thomas said. “There was no honey on it whatsoever. And you know, typically, whenever you get attacked by bees, or I should say, get stung by bees, you've got three or four stings. You don't get hit hundreds of times. And they were just in his hair and just all over him.”
Christian said he was grateful to be alive and thankful that his co-workers quickly removed him from the life-threatening situation.
"The doctor said that I either had superhuman strength or I'm the luckiest person in the world,” he said.
Christian was headed home Friday afternoon to his family in Cocoa. He said he’s already ordered bee suits in case his tree-trimming crew encounters another angry swarm.
According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services (FDACS), Africanized honey bees are in the state and the population will continue to grow.
FDACS set up the country’s first detection program for the killer bees with the U.S. Department of Agriculture.