A 59-year-old Kentucky man died after he was attacked by a swarm of bees while on his porch. Michael Alford was said to have been moving a bag of potting soil outside his home in Harlan County when the swarm of bees flew out of the packet and began to sting him, per a statement from the Harlan County Coroner’s Office. Despite his family’s best efforts, he couldn’t be saved.
- Alford was pronounced dead at a local hospital. When his family realized he’d been stung multiple times, they began to perform CPR. Paramedics continued the efforts when they arrived on the scene, but “those attempts failed.” They described the incident as a “tragic accident.”
- His cause of death was respiratory failure. The bee stings caused him to be unable to breathe. He had been stung so many times that he went into anaphylactic shock and could not recover, per WBIR.
- Michael Alford left behind a wife, three children, and 11 grandchildren. According to his obituary, Alford previously worked as a gas station manager. He lived in Harlan County his entire life, and in his spare time, he loved collecting knives used for whittling, playing the piano, and going four-wheeling.
- Death by bee stings isn’t super common, but it does happen. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Control (CDC) says that there were 788 deaths from hornet, wasp, and bee stings in the decade between 2011 to 2021. A majority of those deaths were in men — 84%, to be specific. While those numbers are pretty low overall, it’s clear these insects can pose a serious threat.
