Police Chief Jerry Meadors and officer Dillan Ford were where they were meant to be Oct. 8.
“Officer Ford and I were both standing in dispatch when the 911 call came in,” Meadors said in his office Monday.
On the calling end was a voice that sounded pretty frantic saying, “Send help. Bee attack.”
“I said, ‘Let’s go on down there to see if they need any help’,” he said. Meadows was taking a risk since he is allergic to wasp stings and thought that he might be allergic to bee stings. That is why he keeps an epinephrine pen in his medic kit.
What they found were three men who had been trimming trees, and one of those trees had a beehive in it.
“There was a large bee hive and the bees attacked,” he remembered.
One of the men was stuck up on a ladder and could not get down as bees swarmed all around him, Meadors said.
“He was just limp on the top of the ladder. It was a very large swarm. The guy was in a bad way,” Meadors said.
The quick-thinking chief, put on what he calls his “paper suit,” some gloves and a gas mask, and ran over to the victim whom coworker had helped down from the ladder.
“He was down when I got over there. Bees were all over him. Stings everywhere,” he said.
He found out the man with all the stings was Alvin Kite.
“Mr. Kite told me he couldn’t use his arms and legs. We (Meadors and Ford) grabbed him and took him over to the ambulance. He was covered in bee stings. Dillan was stung under the eye and it was swollen,” he said.
Kite was taken by ambulance to Ascension Seton Williamson in Round Rock where he was released Oct. 9 in good condition, a spokeswoman from the hospital said.
“It could have been much worse. I am just glad we were in a position to where we could help out,” Meadors said.
As it turned out Meadors didn’t have to use his allergy pen.
“I only got two bee stings. I didn’t have a reaction, so I guess I’m not allergic to honey bees,” he said.
- Log in or Subscribe to post comments.