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Show to re-enact death by yellow jacket swarm

Tonight during an insect marathon, a tragedy off Patterson Road will be reprised.

By BILL COATS
Published June 24, 2005

KEYSTONE - Three years ago, Albert Wellner rode his lawnmower into a tangle of woods, not realizing a huge yellow jacket nest lay directly underground.

The insects swarmed and attacked. Wellner's lawnmower became ensnarled in vines as he tried to maneuver away.

The 83-year-old managed to walk about 20 feet. Then he collapsed and died of 248 yellow jacket stings.

At 9 tonight, that tragedy off Patterson Road will be re-enacted, minus the yellow jackets, on the National Geographic Channel. It's part of a four-hour "bug attack marathon" beginning at 7 p.m.

National Geographic's news release calls the yellow jacket "the most aggressive stinging insect in the United States." Phil Koehler, a University of Florida professor of entomology, wouldn't go that far.

Fire ants cause more deaths, he said, and Africanized bees, which will chase you for a quarter of a mile, are more aggressive.

But when a National Geographic crew in protective clothing was attacked by yellow jackets in Lake Butler, "it was incredibly scary," said Katie Bauer, the show's associate producer.

Wellner's son Tom let the crew tape the re-enactment where his father died, outside the family home on Lake Glass. He said the experience was "surreal," reminiscent of when his private, unassuming family found itself the top focus of Tampa Bay's news media on the day of Albert Wellner's death.

"I couldn't quite believe what I was seeing," he said.

Tonight's bug attacks start with Venom Wars at 7 p.m., followed by Bloodsuckers at 8, Aggression at 9 and Invaders at 10. The Wellner attack fills the final minutes of Aggression.

"It's what the entire show is building up toward," Bauer said.

She said the show was nearly complete when she and co-workers decided to search insect stories in Florida.

"We kind of felt that it needed one more real story in there to get some substance in there," she said.

They discovered the St. Petersburg Times' coverage of Wellner's death, and learned from Tom Wellner that the property hadn't changed since. They taped the re-enactment last month.

Wellner said his family cooperated because they wanted to promote public caution toward yellow jackets. The taping brought tinges of sadness but was mostly positive, he said.

The family still has the lawnmower, and Wellner taught an actor how to use it, he said.

Without yellow jackets, the re-enactment wasn't highly realistic. It shows hands and feet but not faces, Bauer said.

"We use a lot of effects," she said. "It's very stylized."

Wellner, who was interviewed for the show sitting in front of the Lake Glass home, said he hopes viewers learn that dangers can lurk in the woods, and "you should always have an escape route."

Most yellow jackets won't chase you for more than 20 yards, said Koehler, the UF entomologist. "They'll follow you for 50 yards at the most," he said.

Bill Coats can be reached at 813 269-5309 or coats@sptimes.com

[Last modified June 23, 2005, 08:09:06]