Flying Insects Sting Day Care Kids in Minn.

Two women walking along Mississippi River Boulevard in St. Paul heard cries and screams, then quickly realized the sounds were terrified children. Then they saw a swarm of insects stinging a group of day care kids out for a morning walk Wednesday, Sept. 19.

"This little girl -- I've never seen horror movies, but I can only imagine -- the poor little thing was covered (with stinging insects) from head to toe," said Tiffany Anderson.

The insects stung 11 children, two caregivers and two paramedics, said St. Paul Fire Marshal Steve Zaccard. Paramedics took a 3-year-old girl to the hospital to be checked out because she was stung about 30 times. Anderson said that was the girl she tried to help.

The culprits were likely wasps, said Marla Spivak, a University of Minnesota entomology professor.

"Unless they ran into a tree, it would be rare for them to get stung by honeybees," said Spivak, an expert in bees and social insects, including wasps. "Everybody gives bees a bad rap, but it's wasps that bother people at this time of year."

The girl taken to the hospital was home resting Wednesday afternoon, said Jim Masters, director of A Child's View. She was stung in the upper torso, face, hands and abdomen.

"Of course, she's uncomfortable," Masters said.

The children, ranging in age from 3 to 5, were on their daily walk from the day care's Cleveland Avenue location, said Masters, who wasn't with the group at the time. He said they were by the river, near the Ford Bridge, looking at the fall colors when they encountered the insects.

Masters said he's "pretty sure" the girl who was stung the most accidentally disturbed a nest, perhaps in the ground. The group fled to try to escape the stinging insects, he said.

Several blocks away, Kathy Parten and her friend, Anderson, saw the children on Mississippi River Boulevard near Hartford Avenue. After they heard the screams and cries, "we realized that there were bees everywhere," Parten said. She called 911; it was about 11:30 a.m.

Everyone was trying to swat them away, and Anderson helped the girl covered with insects, trying to brush them off her with her bare hands.

"She was remarkably calm," Anderson said. "That's what broke my heart -- I think she didn't know what to do." Anderson said she was stung once on a leg.

Fire department paramedic Mike Paidar said he arrived to find the children "all crying and screaming. They were pretty hysterical."

The insects were in the children's hair and coats, and they tried to get the insects off them by taking off their coats, Paidar said. He was stung a couple times in the neck. Fellow paramedic Justin Kevelin also was repeatedly stung.

The caregivers planned to continue walking to the day care, but the insects "just kept coming," so the paramedic got everyone into the ambulance and drove them the rest of the way, Paidar said.

"Once we got them in the ambulance, they all calmed down really fast -- they knew they were safe with us," he said.

The incident happened in the area of an Aug. 5 rescue, in which firefighters disturbed an insect nest and several rescuers, including Paidar, were stung, Zaccard said.

In the incident, a 21-year-old woman fell about 30 feet down a river bluff and rescuers carrying her to safety disturbed the nest in the Ford Parkway area, Zaccard said.

Many people mistake wasps for honeybees, said Spivak, the entomologist. Bees don't nest in the open or in the ground, but in a hive, a cavity of a tree or sometimes in the wall of a house. Yellowjackets, one kind of wasp, nest in the ground. Another kind of wasp, hornets, nests in trees.

A telltale distinction between a bee and wasp is whether a stinger is left behind: Wasps don't leave a stinger, Spivak said.

Parten, however, said she saw stingers in the face of the girl who suffered the most stings. Paidar said he removed what appeared to be stingers from the children's wounds.

Wasps live in large colonies and generally don't have enough to eat this time of year, Spivak said. "If agitated, they tend to defend their nest," she said.

If someone is being stung, "the absolute worst thing to do is swatting, flailing around," Spivak said. That only agitates the insects more, and they sting even more, she said.

It's best to get out of the area, she said.

No one needs to do anything to get rid of the wasps, if that's what the insects were, Spivak said.

"Some of them, especially this type of year, are annoying," she said. "The main thing to consider is two hard frosts and they'll be gone, not too far from now."

A St. Paul Parks and Recreation maintenance crew, with the department's environmental services section, went to the area to look for insect nests after the incident, said Brad Meyer, department spokesman. They didn't find aerial or ground nests but will do a more thorough inspection Thursday.

If they find a nest and the insects appear to pose a danger, they could kill them with a solution of soapy water, Meyer said.

Or they might decide Mother Nature should take its course and let the coming cold weather alleviate the problem, he said.

Mara H. Gottfried can be reached at 651-228-5262. Follow her attwitter.com/MaraGottfried ortwitter.com/ppUsualSuspects .

FYI

More information about bees vs. wasps is available at a University of Minnesota website, bit.ly/QD31Qo.

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