A 54-year-old man in the North East of Spain was killed by a swarm of wasps of the kind known as Asian Killer Wasps (Vespa Vetulina), which is is slightly smaller than the European hornet.

The incident took place in Porriño (Pontevedra) whilst Ángel González was cutting down an apple tree in the garden of his mother’s house. He hadn’t realised that there was a wasp nest in the tree. When the tree hit the ground, the wasps swarmed out of the nest.

He was being helped at the time by a friend, Santiago Fernández, when the wasps attacked, but the majority went for Angel, because he hadn’t reacted in time and fled like his friend.

Angel fell to the ground, suffering a heart attack provoked by the massive amount of stings.

Only when the wasps had ceased their attack could his friend reach him, finding that Angel had no pulse.

Even though the ambulance was soon in arriving, the crew could do nothing for him other than transfer the victim to Hospital Nicolás Peña de Vigo. Santiago was also treated for stings for which he received several injections and allowed home.

The new nest was destroyed by the fire department two days later after Seprona (Guardia Civil) located it in the undergrowth nearby.

Several other nest had already been found in the south of the same province and destroyed, however, since this latest incident the Protección Civil in Porriño has received a string of calls from worried locals.

This was not the first death in Pontevedra because in August 2014 86-year-old olores L. died after receiving 30 stings.

Since this latest incident the Provincial Council of Ponevedra and the University of Vigo have signed a deal that will allow the university to study the slow colonisation of the province by this pest and how to counter it.

This kind of wasp, which has spread from China, reached Europe in 2004 in a shipment of timber unloaded in Burdeos immediately began carnage in bee hives in the South of France. Experts calculate that if something isn’t done the wasp will be present in the whole of the Iberian Peninsular by 2020.

A final note: although the species is not aggressive it “charges in a group (small swarm) as soon as it feels its nest is threatened.” People have been hospitalised in France as a result of multiple stings. Because of hornets’ larger size, their sting is more serious than that of a bee.

(News: Porriño, Pontevedra, Galicia)