Campus gardener Oscar Verdezco and history teacher Molly Kerr were stung by wasps while on campus on October 10. The incident was apparently the result of an inadvertent disturbance of a wasp nest during routine landscape maintenance.
Kerr was stung 4 times on the back and once on her head. Verdezco experienced about 20 stings on his head and back.
“I was trimming a bush and I stepped on the nest,” Verdezco explained.
Junior Michael Clifford was in auto shop when he first saw a warm of wasps outside. “I was in auto shop and was watching Mr. Boone give us a demo on tires when I saw Oscar, the janitor, weed whacking a bush. Then I saw him swatting around his head and he ran. I didn’t know what he was running for at first until I looked and I saw a swarm of wasps. Then later I saw Mrs. Kerr walking by and she swatted once and she just kept walking. I guess later she was [further] away and she got stung,” he said.
Kerr said, “I saw Oscar 3 to 4 hundred yards ahead of me, swatting his arms around. Next thing I know I feel a bee in my hair.”
After her initial encounter, Kerr walked outside her classroom, which is located near the back of the campus along Campolindo Road, and noticed flying insects. “I started to feel some bees, or wasps. I didn’t know what they were at first,” said Kerr. 4 wasps managed to fly in her shirt and continued to sting her. One got stuck in her hair and began to sting, so Kerr ran to the classroom of history teacher Lindsay Webb-Peploe.
Webb-Peploe was in her classroom, and managed to free the wasp from Kerr’s hair.
Kerr said the stings caused lots of itching and aching the next day. Verdezco said he experienced skin irritation from the stings for about a week.