The article says the driver went to jail and the cop went to the ER. Seriously? The ER for any bites? I’ve been bit many times and never went to the ER.
stand in a mound of fire ants for 30 seconds macho man.
Don’t sell them short.
I have not felt the sting of the fire ants in Florida, but when I lived in the Philippines as a kid, I had a brand new pair of boondockers I was all hot and bothered to try out clumping around in the jungle.
I was with a friend, and we stopped in a clearing. While we talked, I became aware of something crawling on me, and looked down to see one of my boots and pant legs with what we called fire ants.
As soon as I looked at them, as another poster above said, they seemed to begin stinging or biting me all at the same time, inside my boot, inside my pants...I wonder if they do that because as soon as you see them, your body probably immediately tenses up or something, and they all feel it as a threat?
The closest sensation I can compare it to was once when I was in the back seat of a car as a teenager, and someone in the front tossed a lit cigarette out the window. It came back in, unseen to me, and dropped between the seat cushion and my bare, un-shirted teenage torso. That pain of the single lit cigarette butt on my bare back was what each bite felt like.
I madly hopped away, pulling the boot off and raising my pant leg to smash them. That was forty five something years ago, and I remember it vividly as if it were yesterday.
It doesn’t need mentioning that I added Fire Ants to something I look for anytime I commune with nature! (that includes, sharks, grizzly bears, hornets nests, poison ivy...:)
You’ve obviously never met up with the Fire Ant. I was bitten a dozen times on my leg and it made me dizzy. A 10 year old girl here was killed by fire ants a few years back......................
Some people are more reactive to insect venom than others. I got over 80 bites once from some particularly toxic fire ants and considered going to the ER. I was too sick and to do anything for a few days and could barely walk because my legs were so swollen. The only good fire ant is a dead fire ant.