On her last day of sleepaway camp in 2024, 8-year-old Lucy crept barefoot in a field of tall grass, plotting her next move in a game of capture the counselor, when she felt a stinging sensation on both of her feet.
“I tried to keep calm,” Lucy, now 10, said. “But I think I started crying. I told one of the counselors and they started a group of people who needed to go to the nurse.”
Lucy’s feet were swarming with fire ants after she stepped in two massive mounds. By the time she rinsed her feet off with a sprinkler, it was too late. She counted more than 60 stings on each foot…