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Daniéle Leroy has her birthday on 16 January but there’s precious little to celebrate this year. It will be the first one without her husband, Jacques “Jack” Leroy (76), who died in a horrific bee attack on the first day of this year.
The pensioner, from Boksburg, Gauteng, was mowing the grass in a park near his home on 26 December, not realising a swarm of bees had made their home in a nearby electricity box.
“Jacques was mowing the grass near an electricity box in the park. He wasn’t aware of the beehive and the bees overwhelmed him within minutes,” says Isabel Aucamp, a friend of the family.
Within seconds, Jacques was completely covered in bees, she says. “It took emergency services about an hour to get the bees off him using a fire extinguisher.”
Neighbour Brett Tompsett found Jack in the driveway of his home when he returned from a trip to the petrol station, according to The Boksburg Advertiser.
“Brett jumped out of his car and went to see what was happening and that’s when he noticed the bees all over Jack,” Brett’s wife, Kim, told the newspaper.
“It was the worst experience I have witnessed in my life, seeing his whole body swollen up,” says Kim, adding that Jack went to the park on his crutches to get rid of the long grass in the park.
Jacques was taken to Tambo Memorial Hospital initially then was later taken to the Pholosong Hospital in nearby Brakpan and put on a ventilator.
He’d lost all function in one of his kidneys and his heart was taking strain because of the bee venom. But he seemed to be stable.
“We thought he was going to make it. It seemed as if he was improving,” Isabel says.
But the venom from the bee stings had taken its toll. “We suspect he died because of his impaired heart function.”
Isabel says Daniéle (74) is taking her husband’s death hard. “Under the circumstances, she’s doing okay. She’s a very private person and it had just been the two of them. Now she has to cope without her husband.
“We’re supporting her in this time and we’re going to build her a ramp at her home so it’s easier for her to get around with her walker.
“She’s very independent but we can see she’s struggling to come to terms with her husband’s death.
“It’s an incredibly traumatic thing that’s happened to her.”
Bee stings are usually harmless to people who aren’t allergic. But more than 1 000 stings, or 10 stings for every 500g of body weight, could be fatal, according to medical resource MSD Manuals. About 500 stings for children would be deadly.
