MIAMI -- A University of Miami graduate student on a research project in the jungles of Central America was killed by swarming killer bees that stung him for hours, school officials said.
Inn Siang Ooi, 24, a native of Malaysia who was working on his doctorate in biology, was killed July 31 in Costa Rica, said Dr. Jay Savage, chairman of the university's biology department.
Savage said university officials did not learn about the incident until Thursday because the area where the attack took place is so remote.
Savage and Dr. Charles Schnell, coordinator for the Organization of Tropical Studies in San Jose, Costa Rica, said fellow researchers and other would-be rescuers tried for hours to help Ooi but were driven back by the bees.
They said Ooi suffered an average of 46 bee stings per square inch of his body.
Schnell told the Miami Herald by telephone the incident occurred while a dozen graduate students were inspecting a cave more than 100 miles northwest of San Jose.
'Ooi and three others left the cave to climb arugged hill above the cave. It was about 3:30 p.m.,' he said. 'Ooi was some 20 yards ahead when he suddenly began to scream. The others saw a swarm of bees around his head, a cloud.
'At first, they climbed toward him, trying to help, but they were attacked, too, and had to turn back.'
Schnell said they saw Ooi trying to crawl under a rock overhang but it didn't do any good.
Claudette Mo and Peter Smallwood threw their jackets over their heads and tried to drag him to safety but they failed, Schnell said.
'So fierce were the bee attacks on Mo and Smallwood that they were stung several hundred times each,' he said. Mo fainted and had to be hospitalized.
'They could hear his screams which finally diminshed to moans,' Schnell said.
African killer bees were first brought to Brazil for study in 1957 and some of the queen bees escaped, mixing with the common honey bee, Savage said.
'The offspring of this union carries some of the aggressive nature of the African bee. They fiercely protect the queen and attack in a horde or a swarm,' Savage said.
