Family Dog Killed, Mom and Children Hospitalized After Swarm of Bees Attack Them: 'It Feels Very Unreal'

Mar. 15, 2025

Tiffany Ahmu’s two daughters with their late dog, Kona.Photo:Tiffany Ahmu

Tiffany Ahmu

A California family is coping with the loss of their beloved dog after she died from bee stings in a tragic incident that also injured several people.

Tiffany Ahmu was enjoying a “regular summer day” at her parents’ home with her family and some of her daughters’ friends on Wednesday, Aug. 7, when she says disaster struck.

“It’s something we did all the time,” the Lemon Grove resident tells PEOPLE in a statement, then detailing that the day did not end the way it usually does.

Tiffany Ahmu and her family’s dog, Kona, died at age 12 after a swarm of bees attacked them during a pool day.Tiffany Ahmu

As he tended to the children, Ahmu realized that someone was still stuck outside — the family’s 12-year-old dog, Kona. “I can’t leave her out there to die,” she recalled thinking. “I come outside, and I can’t see one inch of her. She’s covered in bees.”

Describing the incident to another local outlet,KUSI, Ahmu said she “couldn’t even see” the pup’s coat. “I pick her up. She’s already limp,” she recalled. “She’s still breathing, but limp, I jump to the pool to dust the bees off and I’m covered in bees.”

Ahmu also told KUSI that she was “calling 911 the whole time and they kept repeating themselves,” telling her: “We don’t come for a bee sting ma’am, call an exterminator.”

Attempting to explain the gravity of the situation, she recalled telling them, “There are not one or two bees. I am in a blanket of bees. I need help, my skin is burning, please help.”

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Ultimately, Ahmu was hospitalized for her stings, as well her niece and the two girls who had stayed at her home the previous night.

Her niece suffered 10 bee stings but was “thankfully” not allergic, she tells PEOPLE. The other girls “only suffered two stings," she adds, “so their mother discharged them.”

Her daughters, meanwhile, woke up on Thursday, Aug. 8, with “abnormally swollen stings,” she says, noting that her 17-year-old suffered the worst stings in her face. They were taken to the emergency room, treated and released the same day.

Three days after the incident, all of the children who were stung “are healing very well,” Ahmu tells PEOPLE. The mom of two, meanwhile, is “really achy and extremely exhausted,” she says.

Kona, however, did not make it.

Not only the family dog, but also her 17-year-old daughter’s registered emotional support animal, Ahmu told KUSI that Kona “had Peter Pan Syndrome … she was so spunky, still super active and hyper.”

“Our family, especially our daughters, are adjusting to the absence of Kona,” Ahmu tells PEOPLE. “It feels very unreal.”

source: people.com