Security officer has seizure on duty-left dying for seven hours
Tampa Florida October 10 2019
A Florida man miraculously survived after he collapsed in extreme heat and was lying unconscious for seven hours with fire ants crawling over his face.
Clifford Rice, 49, was working as a security officer at Tampa’s Raymond James Stadium on Sept. 9 when he had a seizure in the parking lot and fell between two parked cars and was not found for seven hours.
During that time, Rice, laid lifeless covered with fire ants and unconscious.
The last thing he remembered before blacking out was fire ants covering his face.
“A lot of them were just coming in a line like, ‘Hey, man, come get some meat.’ I was like, ‘Wow, OK, this is a bad way to go out,’” Rice told ABC Tampa affiliate WFTS.
When someone did finally discover him laying where had fallen, he was rushed to a nearby medical center and was not breathing on his own and he was dangerously dehydrated and suffered from organ failure and extensive physical injuries sustained in his fall.
His chance of survival was very low, the hospital said.
By the time he woke up a week after he was admitted, he was about 60 pounds lighter and partially blind in his left eye.
But despite the harrowing ordeal, Rice recovered in the hospital for about two weeks and was released on Sept. 25.
“I wasn’t supposed to be alive. They had never seen anything like it before,” Rice told WFTS.
Rice was asked by reporters about how he felt laying there dying and no one knew and no one came to help.
Rice did not immediately respond to ABC News.
The hospital said he “defied the odds” and called him the “miracle man.”
