A swarm of bees attacked a family pet and the resident at 640 E. Acre Drive, in Plantation, fire chief Laney Stearns announced today.
A swarm of bees attacked a family's dog in Plantation Friday and the pet would not survive, fire officials said.
It happened just before 2 p.m. in the backyard of a home on the 600 block of E. Acre Drive. A neighbor made a frantic call to police after seeing the dog and its owner covered in bees, Fire Rescue spokesman Joel Gordon said.
"The [officer] who got there first tried to get in the [backyard] to get the dog," he said. "The dog was actually inundated with bees and [the officer] got stung and he had to come out."
The next door neighbor tried to chase the bees with a garden hose but was attacked, as well.
"That only succeeded in making them mad," Gordon said.
The neighbor and the dog's owner were not seriously injured by the bees but the dog was not doing well.
"We had to use foam to get the bees off of him," Fire Chief Laney Stearns said. "The dog was transported to a local vet by Plantation Police," where it was later euthanized.
The homeowner had no idea there was a hive in the wall until firefighters sprayed foam on the back of the house.
"We actually had to take a piece of the wall down from the garage behind the house where the hive was," Gordon said. "We foamed it and we were able to kill all the bees."
Not every bee was in the hive.
"We obviously didn't get them all," Gordon said. "We were half a block away and we were getting inundated [still]."
Traffic along East Acre Drive was rerouted for about one hour.
Without microscopic confirmation from an entomologist, it was unknown whether the bees were the more aggressive Africanized honey bees. It's not the first time bees have killed in South Florida.
On April 18, a swarm of bees killed a dog in West Park. In 2008, Palm Beach County resident Nancy Hill, 70, and her three dogs were attacked by bees. She survived but the dogs died.
Bees have been known to kill horses in central Florida, but there is no record of a human death related to killer bees in Florida.
Staff researcher Barbara Hijek contributed to this story
wkroustan@tribune. com or 954-356-4303
via www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/plantation/fl-plantation-bee-attack-20130920,0,6612256.story
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