Thousands of bees flocked onto an interstate in Oklahoma Tuesday and swarmed over vehicles, trapping one sheriff's deputy inside his patrol car after a semi-truck carrying all of these bees overturned.
The incident was reported to authorities around 1 p.m. local time at the southbound Interstate 35 in Garvin County, which is located at the southern part of Oklahoma City. Dozens of crates that carried the bees toppled over, causing the insects swarm all over the exit ramp, Fox News reported.
One local man tried to pull the truck driver from the overturned vehicle. "I got stung on the lip, on the end of the nose, mouth, the side of the eye and then the back," Scott Woods said. The driver was rushed to the hospital, but no fatal injuries were reported.
The accident caused a four-hour traffic delay Tuesday afternoon.
This was the scene today on I-35 and MM 72 southbound, when a semi carrying honey bees rolled over on the interstate. The honey bees swarmed and covered the patrol cars.
Posted by Oklahoma Highway Patrol (The Official FB Page) on Tuesday, September 29, 2015
Jim Stinson, a local beekeeper, and others were called to the area to try and rescue as many bees as possible.
"There's a bee shortage," Stinson said, according to The Washington Post. "When they started talking about killing these bees here tonight, I [threw] a fit and said, 'You don't do that till I get there.' As long as people go to fighting them, they go to swatting at them and they're gonna get mad."
Experts noted that this accident will not only be a threat in the crash sites, but to the nearby areas as well.
"The bees will swarm up to 10 miles away, some of them in groups," said Bud Ramming, emergency management coordinator of the county, according to KOKH.
The exact number of bees that went loose was not verified, but it is estimated that millions of them escaped, the Daily Mail reported.