Fri Feb 03 2012
by Dorothy Markulis
Reporter
Hudson -- For almost a year, Carriage Hill Drive resident Ed Wilson gets a weekly dose of poison -- bee venom -- designed to build his immunity to bee stings and help him avoid allergy attacks, like the near fatal one he suffered last year.
In July 2009, Wilson was mowing his lawn when he ran over a ground nest of yellow jackets. He suffered four bites on his wrist and his leg. Less than 30 minutes later, he was facing death.
"If it hadn't been for my neighbor and my wife, I wouldn't be here today talking to you," Wilson said June 21.
Wilson's experience will be featured on the WVIZ/PBS special TV program "Attacking Allergies" June 30 at 8 p.m.
"When it happened I started jumping up and down and yelling," Wilson said. "My wife came out to see what was wrong."
Other than being angry, Wilson said he felt no ill effects of the bites, just a little itching, and attempted to treat the ground nest with gasoline and went back to mowing.
Less than 30 minutes later he began itching all over his body and his feet began to swell. He said he started to feel light-headed.
Wilson walked over to his neighbor, Mark Restifo, a registered nurse, was outside doing yard work, and said "I don't feel well."
Restifo took one look at him and said "We've got to get you into the house."
Wilson said he started toward the house and fell to one knee. His wife, Michelle, a nurse practitioner, came out, helped get him into the house and called 911.
"Then I collapsed and fell to the floor," Ed said. He was unconscious.
When he awoke, his wife was holding his airway open and Restifo was preparing to do chest compressions. Then Hudson EMS arrived.
He said three paramedics began working on him, inserting IVs and filling him with fluid. He said by that time his fingers and feet were blue.
"I had almost no blood pressure," he recalls.
He was taken to the trauma center on Steels Corners Road and released nine hours later into the care of his wife.
"Every week since then I have been getting three shots of bee venom," Wilson said.
The shots are administered by Dr. Robert Hostoffer of the Cleveland Allergy and Immunology Associates.
"Last year if I would have gotten stung again, there was a 95 percent chance I would not have survived. This year, after the shots, there is an 80 percent chance I will survive," Wilson said.
Wilson, who is in transportation sales, also carries an emergency kit with him containing antihistamines and an epinephrine stick to counter any bee attack.
"I'm prepared now," he said.
E-mail: dmarkulis@recordpub.com
Phone: 330-686-3943
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