Wasps Swarm, Attack Boy Scouts in Balboa Park
24 boys and two adults were stung during the hike in Balboa Park Saturday
Flicker
A nature hike turned into a lashing from Mother Nature Saturday as wasps swarmed and attacked a group of Boy Scouts hiking in Balboa Park.
24 boys and two adults were stung. Three people were sent to area hospitals.
“It keeps stinging me a little bit,” 6-year-old Joshua Villafranco said as he lifted his shirt to show us his sting. “I got stung in the back, but one kid got stung 20 times.”
The group of 50 hikers was on a narrow path when a boy stepped on a hive, which was underground.
“One boy got stung, then another got stung and by the third kid, I noticed that it was a whole hive that just swarmed the whole pack of us,” Lorenzo Villafranco said. “I grabbed as many boys as I could and we just hightailed it up the trail.”
Villafranco said the wasps were extremely aggressive, stinging over and over.
“They were swarming after the entire group of hikers and sort of caused a panic,” he said. “Many of the kids were complaining about stings in various locations, on their legs and arms and back and one child got stung on the eye. Just under the eye.”
Naturalist Walter Konopkh said he went back to make sure everyone was accounted for.
“I didn’t want some poor kid cowering under a bush somewhere, so I went back. There was another father and son with me, looking to see if there were any stragglers. Then there’s a mother whose child lost her $300 glasses, so that added another dimension,” he said.
The wasps gave chase again, and Konopkh got stung.
“This is a shock, when people are getting attacked and they’re getting stung all over. They get up your shirt and you’re trying to get the things off,” he said.
Luckily, the Boy Scouts already had medical staff on hand to help treat the boy’s stings.
“It’s the Boy Scout motto, ‘Be Prepared’,” Boy Scouts District Director Vic Enchelmayer said.
