Fire-Ants Are No Laughing Matter

Several years back a woman by the name of Janet Wallace Roedl Shiansky was gardening in her backyard when she realized that she was being victimized by an army of ants. The woman, who was sixty eight years old, went into anaphylactic shock, and died shortly afterwards. These ants are known among the public as fire ants, and they are common in the United States.

According to entomologist, Mike Ruapp, most of the time fire-ant bites won’t cause any injuries worse than red welts and a pustule that typically lasts no more than three days. However, Raupp also said that in about five percent of fire ant attacks on humans, the humans end up dying. In most of the cases that do involve a human-death caused by a fire-ant attack, the deaths occurred as a result of a violent allergic reaction, and not so much the fire-ant bites. Raupp has personally seen cases where people’s throats swelled up as a result of an allergic reaction. Naturally, those people soon died, as they could not access oxygen.

The woman that died after sustaining an attack from fire ants had the bugs running into her clothing, mostly her shoe. After she had clearly been bitten several times her husband washed her bite-wounds with ammonia. Sadly her husband discovered her motionless body not too long after the ant-attack. The fire-ant victim’s official cause of death was suffocation as her airways tightened as an allergic response to fire-ant bites.

Fire ants are mainly found throughout the Southeast United States and they often feed on small animals, like kittens. You might find fire ants in other parts of the country, like California, but they do not have any big colonies up north. If you happen to sustain a fire-ant bite/s, then call the doctor if you have any known allergies.

Have you ever been bitten by a group of ants of any kind?