Bees Swarm Firefighters During Rescue of Woman in Fatal Crash

Westminster firefighters, trying to cut a critically injured woman from a crumpled car beside the San Diego Freeway early Monday, had to withstand wave after wave of air attacks from two nests of bumblebees disturbed by the wreck.

A car sailed off the freeway and down an embankment, killing its driver and leaving a passenger unconscious.

The Orange County coroner’s office identified the driver as Dandy B. Sutphin, 46, of Torrance. The passenger, identified by the California Highway Patrol as Josephina Pinosa, 40, of Torrance, was in serious condition at Fountain Valley Regional Hospital with abdominal and chest injuries and a concussion.

The CHP, police and rescue crews were met by an angry colony of bees that had been living in a tree struck by the car.

What made it worse was that the rescue itself was difficult, according to firefighters, adding to the vulnerability of rescuers to bee stings.

“They were just attacking like jets coming off an aircraft carrier,” said Battalion Chief Allen White of the Westminster Fire Department. “You’d see them off a distance gathering, and then they’d come in again.”

White said that paramedics “just took the stings and kept working. We had guys getting stung for an hour and a half.”

White said that county pest control officers and a beekeeper were called, “but their equipment was ineffective against the bumblebee. . . . The bumblebees don’t lose their stingers. They can punch you five or six times times without ever leaving you.”

White said that one firefighter was stung 12 times. Most, he said, were stung on the eyebrows, under the eyes, at the back of the neck, on the backs of the thighs and on the arms and head. Yet two firefighters who were in the thick of it from beginning to end were not stung at all.

Still, White said, he didn’t think the bees slowed the rescue. “The guys just kept working. It was miserable.”