quote:A Waikato farmer had to walk 45 minutes for help after she was stung at least 50 times in the head by wasps when she stepped in a nest on a remote block of land northwest of Taumarunui.
A "really, really sore" Janet Kelland last night spoke to the Herald from her bed at Taumarunui Hospital after the ordeal which began about midday yesterday on the farm she part- owns.
A few summers ago I was walking off-trail in the state forest next to me to get back to the house when I felt some sort of insect bite on my lower leg. I looked around... and saw I came within maybe two feet of stepping on a ground wasp nest.
But this woman's story gets even better (or worse, depending on your POV):Wasp attack victim cheats death a third time
quote:A Taumarunui sheep farmer who was attacked by hundreds of angry wasps in a remote valley has dodged death for the third time.
The attack by hundreds of angry wasps yesterday could have killed Janet Kelland, but she's bouncing back, just as she did on two earlier near-death experiences.
Kelland, 54, was climbing Mt Everest in the 1996 storm that took the life of New Zealand mountaineer Rob Hall and says she had been extremely lucky to survive.
"I really had no right to make it out of that storm", she said.
Her second escape from death happened five years ago while riding a horse on her property, when she was thrown off, breaking her neck and several bones in her back.
"The doctors really didn't think I would survive that – but I did."
She was airlifted to Waikato Hospital by the same pilot, Dan Harcourt, who transported her to Taumarunui Hospital yesterday. He flew her to Waikato Hospital after she was involved in another riding accident about two years ago, from which she also fully recovered.
"I think I've extended those nine lives, by about 20," she told Fairfax.