Bee Sting Nearly Kills Adventurer While the Cameras Roll

A rugged survivalist who's been celebrated for feats of endurance—like climbing Mount Everest and crossing the north Atlantic—was nearly felled by a bee while recording an upcoming TV show, the New York Post reports. Bear Grylls, 45, was on a boat on a Pacific island when the bee sting threw him into "life-threatening" shock. The British ex-military man tried to keep filming the episode of Treasure Island, but couldn't do it. Soon medics were rushing on board to treat his severe anaphylactic reaction with an EpiPen to thwart the venom. Mano Shanmug-anathan, a brain surgeon featured in the series, watched in amazement.

"The irony of Bear the survivalist being stung, having the potential of an allergic reaction, and needing to be treated with an EpiPen, was a bizarre moment," he said. "That was crazy!" Grylls himself admitted it was an ironic twist: "It's quite a brute of a bee sting this, it's made all this part of me swell up," he said, per the Evening Standard. "...The irony is, out of all of the massive, lethal, aggressive, man-eating crocs, snakes, alligators I've dealt with over the years, the one that gets me is a bee. It's typical." Grylls first divulged his bee-sting allergy with a photo of his swelled-up face on Instagram in 2015. (More bee stings stories.)