Gretta was in the bed of the pickup truck when the Africanized bees surrounded her. Richard Mockabee, a beekeeper from Lehi, Utah, saw her from afar and did not calculate the risk: he ran toward the swarm. In just a few seconds, he received approximately 500 stings from the so-called ‘killer bees,’ the most aggressive type known.
They found him collapsed in the front seat of his vehicle, unconscious. His son Stephen saw him like that for the first time in his life: ‘You always see them as heroes. But seeing him unconscious affected me deeply’.
Gretta did not survive. Richard did, but barely. They stabilized him urgently and transferred him to the United States border to receive medical care. Two months after the attack that occurred in Mexico, he was still in a rehabilitation clinic in California. Walking, eating, and speaking required intensive therapy every day.
But what was hardest for the family was another moment: telling him that Gretta had died. Because before he could speak well, before he could eat on his own, Richard was already asking about her.