Kansas reporter's 'freakout' spurred by heckling cicadas

FORT RILEY, Kan., June 12 (UPI) -- A Kansas reporter can add "viral star" to her resume after a clip of her on-camera "freakout" spurred by 17-year cicadas made the rounds online.

Katya Leick, a reporter for KSNT-TV, climbed atop a tank Tuesday at U.S. Army base Fort Riley to deliver a report on live-fire drills, but she was repeatedly interrupted mid-sentence by the large, loudly buzzing insects flying close to her face -- at one point nearly going into her mouth.

"Every time I tried to start talking, they'd come. I was like, 'I need to hold it together, come on, I just have to get this done with,'" Leick told ABC News.

Leick, who shared a compilation of her cicada problems from the shoot on YouTube, said she has a sense of humor about her "freakout."

"It's OK to laugh at me!" she assured fans in a Facebook post.