In a stroke of bad luck akin to being hit by lightning, a man in Philadelphia experienced an extraordinarily rare bee sting directly to his eyeball, leading to a series of unfortunate events.
The 55-year-old man sought help at the emergency department after the incident, where medical professionals attempted to remove the bee’s stinger from his right eye. However, it became evident that they did not manage to extract it entirely.
Two days later, the man visited Wills Eye Hospital with worsening symptoms of vision impairment and pain in the affected eye. His vision in the right eye had significantly deteriorated, only allowing him to perceive hand movements. The eye was swollen, inflamed, and bloodshot, with blood accumulating at the base of the iris. During the examination, ophthalmologists identified a small spear-like fragment of the bee’s stinger lodged near the boundary of the cornea and the white part of the eye.
Images of the eye and the stinger fragment can be viewed here for those who can stomach the sight. The image shows the location of the stinger fragment and the pooled blood.
Seeking specialized care
In a recently published report in the New England Journal of Medicine, ophthalmology experts Talia Shoshany and Zeba Syed emphasized the importance of consulting an eye specialist in case of an ocular bee sting.
According to Shoshany, who communicated via email, the emergency room staff initially missed the tiny stinger fragment as it was only visible under a microscope with a bright light, known as a slit lamp. The fragment was eventually located at a magnification of 10X or 16X using fluorescent dye and had to be removed with micro-forceps designed for eye procedures.
After successfully extracting the remaining stinger fragment, Shoshany and Syed prescribed antibacterial and steroid eye drops to manage inflammation. By the five-month follow-up, the patient had shown significant improvement, with his vision in the affected eye reaching 20/25.
Shoshany reassured those worried about eye stings by mentioning that such incidents are exceptionally rare. Although documented cases exist in the medical literature, the exact frequency is unknown. Comparatively, the chance of being struck by lightning stands at 1 in 15,300, as per the National Weather Service.
One puzzling aspect of this situation is the ambiguity surrounding why the man was stung in the first place. Shoshany explained that the man had encountered a beehive while working on a property but had not directly interacted with the bees. “He mentioned that while passing by, several bees approached him, leading to one stinging him in the eye,” she noted, highlighting the unclear provocation for the incident.
