ST. CHARLES, Mich., Aug. 1 (UPI) -- A Michigan man is dead after suffering what's believed to be a medical incident while driving and crashing his car into an abandoned house filled with bees.

Police say 54-year-old Patrick Lee Muirhead drove off the road as he was rounding a curve around 3:30 p.m. Wednesday, crashing into a vacant residence and releasing an estimated 50,000 honey bees.


When rescuers arrived, Muirhead was unconscious on the grass near the accident but firefighters, paramedics and witnesses who attempted to help they dying man were chased away by uncontrollable swarms of bees.

"There were thousands and thousands of bees," Tri-Township Chief Pat Harley told Michigan live. "Just masses of them."

"The house, we're being told, has not been occupied for many years," Saginaw County Sheriff Lt. Randy Pfau said.

"There were just large swarms of bees within the home. It was so infested, they couldn't get to him."

Eventually, with help from local beekeepers T.M. Klein and Sons Honey, rescuers were able to get to Muirhead, but he was pronounced dead on the scene.

The bees were all destroyed.