CITRUS COUNTY, Fla. — A Florida man survived a swarm of bees and a 30-foot fall during a recent tree-trimming job.
It happened to Jon Christian, a Brevard County man, who was working a job last Wednesday.
Christian said 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 of me," he said.
Christian said he accidentally hit a switch, and that got him stuck in his bucket truck as the bees kept stinging him.
"I just started hollering 'help,' and 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 then rolled off the roof to the ground, and the things just kept coming at me."
Christian not only survived the vicious bee attack but the fall as well.
The rest of his crew pulled him away from the swarm and rushed him to the hospital.
"I had no broken bones, no internal bleeding," he said. "They treated me at the hospital. It's a miracle because the swelling went away."
He was stung about 120 times, nearly half of them on his head. Christian also said he has a bee allergy that he's known about since he was a teen.
“According to the beehive guy, when he got here to remove them, he told me, 'So many of these stories end up in tragedy,'" Christian said.
Grant Thomas, a bee removal worker in Polk County, believes these weren't European honey bees that nearly took Christian's life but killer bees.
"Their comb throughout the whole thing was extremely dark in color. There was no honey on it whatsoever," Thomas said. "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 is grateful to be alive and thankful to his co-workers for quickly removing him from the life-threatening situation.
"The doctor said that I either had superhuman strength, or I'm the luckiest person in the world, but whichever case it is, stop and play the lottery," he said.
Christian went home from the hospital Friday afternoon. He said he's already ordered bee suits in case his tree-trimming crew encounters another angry swarm.
