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Help Baillie Hillman and James Ramirez Cover Their Vet Bills

Jenna Petrohoy is organizing this fundraiser on behalf of Baillie Hillman.
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5/15 - Samantha - your.horsegirl.advocate on TikTok has been sharing this story. Thank you for spreading awareness about this! Below is a link to one of her videos regarding the situation:
https://www.tiktok.com/@your.horsegirl.advocate/video/7504391586202209582

Starting this on behalf of my best friends, Baillie Hillman and James Ramirez. They experienced the most tragic event May 9th, 2025, part of which I witnessed. Below is Baillie’s story: it’s a long read, but any help to cover vet bills would be appreciated!

5/10 - WARNING: Triggering content on horse death & bee swarms below:::

Yesterday was the scariest day of my life. It was a day you see only in horror films and made up nightmares. A day that only the devil would enjoy.

Three of my horses and I were swarmed by African Killer Honey Bees at my place here in Comanche, Texas. It started as a normal day, that's what everyone says, right? James and I decided to fence off the front of the house to turn a few horses out to graze on some grass and give them a break from their stalls. He turned them out at about 8:30AM and left for work. I was in the house working from home on the computer. At about 11:00AM I decided to peek my head out the window to check on them, and I noticed they weren’t grazing and just standing still with their heads between their legs. There was a black cloud around them, and I thought it was just an insane amount of flies. I ran out to halter them and move them, but I quickly noticed it was bees. Millions of bees attacking my horses and now attacking me. They were filling my glasses and my ears, and dive bombing my head, they dug into the bun on my head and got caught in my hair. I ran back inside and put jeans on, a heavy coat, a beanie, and a wild rag and ran back out to try and move the horses. No matter how hard I pulled, they wouldn’t budge. I can only describe it by saying that their fight or flight instincts turned into freezing instead. I don’t understand why they didn’t take off when the bees first came. Our horses have gone through the hot wire a million times just playing around, but yesterday they didn’t budge. When I realized I couldn’t do this alone, I called James who was over 30 minutes away. He jumped in his truck and came as fast as he could. I then decided to call 911. Maybe the fire department could come and spray the horses. Maybe they had something, anything to free my horses from the terror. They looked like soaking wet statues. In the meantime, I had drug one of our own hoses over to try and spray the horses down, but that made the bees angrier. They attacked the hose and continued to attack me. When I realized I wasn’t going to be able to help the horses, I ran to the highway to try to find someone to help get the bees off of me. A nice man pulled over and helped get them out of my hair and my shirt. He even tried to go and save my horses, but the bees were too thick. Sobbing and going into what I can only think was a panic attack, the ambulance pulled in and ushered me into it to try and keep the bees off me and to get the stingers out of my neck, scalp, and face. I had never been stung before, so we were all worried that I would go into anaphylaxis. In the meantime, James, his parents, and my parents were trying to get a vet to come out as soon as possible to treat the horses once the bees had come off. The EMTs helped me to call vets, the fire department, and the local pest control company. They wouldn’t let me out of the Ambulance. Once James arrived, he jumped into action and was immediately able to man handle one of the horses away from the main swarm. Another horse finally took off running and went through two fences, trying to free herself from the terror. James was then pawed in the head and had blood running down his face, but he never quit. My savior. Around this time, pest control arrived, and the fire department and they put James in a bee suit so he could continue tending to the horses with a local small animal vet who we begged to come.

Sparing you from the absolutely unimaginable gory details, my head horse, Clovis, died in my backyard from anaphylactic shock. Ace, James' horse, was put down at Signature Equine Hospital in Stephenville after she went into a seizure they couldn’t get her out of. The vet said she's never seen anything like this before. Pepper, my little spitfire 5yo, is now fighting for her life at the vet in the ICU. Her kidneys are in danger, and hope they can flush all the histamines out of her body before they wreak havoc on her organs. Her eyes are swollen shut, and they are ready to insert a trach into her throat for her to breathe if needed. My neck, scalp, and hands are sore and swollen from the bee stings. James's head is pretty sore, but I don’t think he will need any staples or stitches. I’m just glad we are alive.

I'm so thankful for my friends down here who came to our rescue. Jenna came and helped care for me and gave me updates on the horses. She went to the vet with me too. Her mom came and did our dishes and had dinner ready for us when we were finally comfortable to go inside. Conner and Jessica came as quick as they could and cared for the horses when I couldn’t bear to see them suffer. They gave Pepper a fighting chance, and I couldn't ask for more. I'm grateful for the wonderful company I work for, my coworkers, and my Boss have been so understanding and she even sent me an Instacart from Walgreens with stuff to help our stings. I'm grateful for our parents for calling and offering to come help, even though they couldn't do any more than we could.

If this taught me, or if I can teach you anything. PLEASE inspect your trees and ground for bees. Spray the foam on them so the hives can’t form in them. We aren’t sure if they have a hive in one of our trees here or if they were disturbed and then left their hive and swarmed. Have a pest control guy come out in April every year to check them when they are more dormant. I promise you it’s worth it.

I don’t post on Facebook ever. I don’t share my daily life. But, everyone deserves to be prepared, and I don't want this to happen to anyone else. Losing horses like this is something I wouldn’t wish upon anyone. I see their swollen faces when I close my eyes. I see the way they stood, just letting the bees swarm them. Hopefully, one day that image will blur.

Everyone is asking how they can help, and I really don’t know other than putting a GoFundMe out there for donations on our vet bills and the pest control bill to try and eliminate the bees in the next couple of days.

Please share this with your friends. Make everyone knows about the danger of these bees.

Please pray for us and for Pepper. Pray for our friends who were here helping, the vets, and everyone else who helped. It’s going to take a while for the horror to subside.

5/11 UPDATE: Unfortunately, Pepper seized last night and died. I'm so thankful for Signature Equine and especially Elle, there doing all they could for her. She did end up having a tracheostomy, and her head swelled so large it was terrifying. They pumped her full of everything, trying to bring her body out of shock, but it was just too much for her little body to handle. These bees killed 3 of our horses. Please be careful.

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    Organizer and beneficiary

    Jenna Petrohoy
    Organizer
    Comanche, TX
    Baillie Hillman
    Beneficiary
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