School officials, first responders talk about bee attack on playground

MARTIN, Tenn. — Dozens of first grade students at Martin Primary School were stung Tuesday morning after an incident involving a swarm of bees.

“There were four classrooms at the playground at that time,” Principal Tracey Bells said. “Our teachers immediately began to bring them inside the building. There were 23 students and a teacher that were affected.”

The attack happened around 10:45 that morning on the school playground. Several emergency responders were on the scene to help within minutes.

“When we got to the scene, we did encounter multiple kids that have been stung,” City of Martin Fire and Rescue Chief Jamie Summers said. “So we started doing triage and splitting the kids up and placing medical personnel with each group of kids that we had.”

There were no serious injuries or reactions reported, but Bell says some of the students were upset.

“We did have some students who were quite upset, and their parents did choose to come and pick them up and take them home for the day,” Bell said.

They say they have groundskeepers that normally walk through the area each morning spraying for insects like bees or wasps.

“We had a beekeeper who came today and walked the playground,” Bell said. “We walked it yesterday. There were no signs of any bees there on the playground.”

They say the swarm was unexpected and that it’s still not clear what caused the attack.

“The beekeeper said that the cause could have been from a number of things,” said Lorna Benson, SAFE School Coordinator for Weakley County Schools. “They could have been just migrating from one area to another, and it was an unhappy coincidence of time and place.”

Bell says most of the students were back at school Wednesday.