Sept 11th, around 03:30 my partner and I got a "diff breather" call out in the county. It was on a lake at a year round residence. We get on scene with the vollie rescue dept and go into the house and do our thing. The pt is packaged and loaded on the cot. My medic hopped into the truck to spike the bag as we loaded the pt into the rig. It was pretty cool that morning, about 40 degrees. We made sure the rig`s doors were closed when we went into the house. So, we get the cot into the rig and my partner starts yelling and waving his arms around…."get her out of here NOW!!!"….In the 15 or so seconds the back doors were open, about 60-80 bald faced hornets swarmed into the rig. We took the pt out of the rig and wheeled her down the street away from the ambulance. My medic went with her. He took a blanket and covered her. A rescue member and I got into the back of the truck, turned out the lights and tried to kill the hornets. Finally, SJ got a SCBA bottle off the rescue and we blew them out with the compressed air. We killed the remaining ones with a towel. Luckily nobody was stung. After the pt was loaded, we looked around and found the nest on a garage next to where we parked. The combination of air temp, lights and warm interior must have made the hornets swarm to the truck.
LESSONS LEARNED: Just be prepared for the unexpected. Adapt and react….
