The Only Time in My Life That I Ever Screamed

ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE

I only recall screaming once in my life. Thinking back as an adult, it was probably a good thing that I was screaming because it channelled a bit of my energy, kept the adrenalin flowing, and alerted my parents that all was not well. It may well have saved my life.

I would have been about 8 years old. We had about a quarter of an acre of land on our rented property, surrounded by native bush in the Waitakere Ranges, Auckland’s rainforest.

The land directly around the house was populated by a plethora of mature fruit trees. We had apples, oranges, mandarins, feijoa, peaches, plums, pears, and even figs. You could pig out any time you wanted without worrying about cost or whether it you needed permission to eat the fruit. It was encouraged. My mother bottled lots of it as preserves, and my father experimented with making wines and ciders.

It was a hot summer’s day and clad only in my shorts, I was having a wonderful adventure climbing in one of the large trees, eating fruit and spitting out the pips, as I rose closer to the top of the tree. I pretended I was a monkey, swinging from branch to branch. Life was good. I didn’t have a care in the world.

Suddenly my arm knocked something loose from the tree and ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE!

A beehive and I bounced off the branches to the ground. Before I even got to my feet, I realised that I was being stung. As I turned, I saw a swarm of angry bees. I ran to the house and looking back, saw I was being chased by dozens of irate eusocial¹ apis². Whatever! But yes, you could say they were cooperative. Thinking back to watching a rerun of the movie, perhaps a horror night at a theatre in Christchurch Cathedral Square, I can relate to the attack scene from Hitchcock’s movie The Birds. Don’t show this video to your kids.

The whole swarm was racing after me, like Kamikaze planes, jamming their pulsating stinger sacks into my arms, back and legs, as they emptied venom into any part of my body that wasn’t clothed.

I fell to the brown linoleum floor just inside the back doorway of our house, and my father came running, to find out what all the caffuffle was about. I looked at my arms and my side, and in between the remaining few bees, there were stings, left behind, pulsating and pumping as if they had a life of their own.

I remember my father telling me to lie still, as he sent my mother to get a pair of tweezers because, as I had already discovered, if I tried to pull a sting out, it simply served to make sure it emptied itself. Don’t watch this video if you are squeamish. It seemed to take forever and I recall him trying to come me, and get me to stay still so he could minimise the amount of toxin I was taking on board.

I don’t remember much beyond that. I think our minds have a way of protecting us from trauma. There was an ambulance ride, and a night in the hospital and from that day on, I have had a severe allergy to bee and wasp stings. I’ve had other random allergic reactions over the years that I haven’t been able to pin to anything other than a compromised immune system, which I point to that fateful summer’s day.

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I only recall being stung twice after that event, both many years later.

The first was while picking tobacco on a farm in Motueka. We were topping, to stop the growth in height of the plants so that the ‘goodness’ would go into the leaves instead of the flowers. It was quite a fast rhythmic process. You barely looked at the top of each plant as you ripped it off.

I disturbed a bee and it felt as though someone had whacked my thumb with a hammer. Hard! Within a few minutes, my thumb was swelling and I started to feel very tired. My face was swelling and my mind was numbing. It was hard to get the stinger out because my hands were covered in a thick dark tar from the tobacco.

My boss drove me into town to the duty doctor. I don’t recall what happened after that. I know I was there under observation for several hours, mostly sleeping and being woken up to check that I was OK. I don’t recall what medications they gave me.

By the time I was OK to go home, my thumb was almost as thick as my entire hand. The hand was lightly bandaged and my thumb felt like it was going to split open. I spent the next two days mostly on my workers’ accommodation bed, with the bandage strung up to a window handle above me in a makeshift sling, holding my hand elevated to try and reduce the swelling. I had some sort of alcohol solution that I was to pour over the bandage, which had a cooling effect as it evaporated. For a couple of nights, I slept like that, with my wrist dangling from the window handle. How can such a little insect cause immense pain to a small part of your body?

The second time, as I rode a motorbike through Appleby, between Nelson and Motueka, I turned suddenly to face my girlfriend who was riding pillion, feeling a burning sensation on my waist and slammed on the brakes.

The wheels skidded as I pulled to the gravel side of the road and asked if she was smoking because it felt as though someone had pushed a burning cigarette straight into my skin. Everyone smoked back in the day, but why I would think she was smoking on the pillion seat doesn’t make any sense in hindsight, other than as a response to the searing pain.

I remember turning the bike around and very slowly riding to Richmond to a medical surgery, where I spent most of the afternoon asleep. I don’t know what they gave me, but it wasn’t an EpiPen. My face was swollen, my throat felt constricted and I was eventually sent home with a bunch of medications.

I’ve been really lucky not to have been stung since. I should carry an EpiPen by rights, but they are expensive and have a use-by date. I used to have a Medic Alert bracelet, but not having been stung for years, I only replaced it a couple of times. You don’t need to tell me, I have heard it all. I’m just stubborn.

So what brought up this topic, out of the blue? A couple of weeks ago my wife discovered a wasp nest in our gazebo. F!

My first reaction was not to go near it, but I couldn’t leave it. I went to the DIY store and bought a professional-grade spray in a bottle the size and shape of a fire extinguisher. Then, just to show I was being careful on a hot afternoon when the temperature was still around 27C, or 80F, I covered myself from head to heel, to go and reek some damage. Sorry Mother Nature, I know we need bees, but please build your hives in the trees!

I waited until night, when most of the bees would hopefully be asleep, and bombed the hell out of that hive. I did feel mean as the bees came out of their cells to see what was going on, and once it was coated with foam, I left them to it. I didn’t want to see if any were going to fly into the gazebo from outside to come and protect the hive.

The following morning there were many dead bees on the floor, and I gave the hive another good blast that night, but I’m sure I had already dealt with them. I feel a little sad, but I recall the teachings of an American Buddhist Monk who said that while all life is sacred and precious, it’s ok to kill a mosquito when it is stinging you. I’ll take that as a license in this case because otherwise, I would not be able to enter my gazebo again.

So there you have it. The one time in my life I screamed. So many years ago and I can still see myself, that 8-year-old boy, torn from my reverie and running for all I was worth. My first ambulance ride and first trip to the hospital, not that I recall that part.

Have you had a similar experience? Feel free to leave a comment. Don’t flame me for killing the bees. It had to be done. :)

1. Living in a cooperative group in which usually one female and several males are reproductively active and the nonbreeding individuals care for the young or protect and provide for the group

2. Apis is Latin for bee. Apis mellifera is a honey-carrying bee. In these cases more like maleficent!