Gary Knabenbauer is speaking out exclusively to Inside Edition while recovering from a near-fatal assault by a swarm of angry bees.
This is the volunteer officer who survived a brutal bee attack on live television.
Gary Knabenbauer is speaking out exclusively to Inside Edition while recovering from a near-fatal assault by a swarm of angry bees.
"I started getting stung on the face," Gary tells Inside Edition. "They went right for the face, and it was like a cloud. They were everywhere."
Gary has served as a volunteer officer with the Los Angeles Police Department for the last 18 years.
The 71-year-old grandfather responded to a call for help by individuals who saw the swarm of bees, and started directing traffic as firetrucks began arriving to the scene.
That is when he suddenly became the target of the swarm of bees.
"I tried to get back into the car but I thought if I open this car door the all the bees are going to come zipping in," Gary says. "And we would be in an enclosed area, so then my partner would start getting stung."
Gary chose to wave his partner off and brave the swarm by himself rather than risk injuring his partner.
"Each little sting was a sting with the poison going in, and that hurts," adds Gary. "It really hurts."
He tells Jim Moret that he did recall being told to walk slowly if ever being swarmed by bees.
"It was the most frightening experience of my life," he says.
Footage shows a bloodied and battered Gary trying to fight off the swarm and protect himself to no avail.
Gary refused to give up however and eventually managed to escape the swarm, at which point an emergency vehicle rushed him to the hospital.
The fire department estimated that he had been stung between 50 to 100 times in the end.
"It felt like a lot more than that," says Gary, who was stung mostly in the face. "And I was really concerned about being stung in the eye."
He needed surgery after fracturing his eye socket during the attack and spent five painful days recovering in the hospital.
"I didn't see myself until I was in my room and I went to the bathroom there and I looked up into the mirror and I was like, 'Oh my God,'" says an emotional Gary. "Yeah, that was bad."
And how did that make him feel?
"I felt like screaming 'Nurse!'" says Gary.
A GoFundMe campaign has now been set up to help Gary, who, because he is a volunteer, is responsible for the entire cost of his medical care.
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