Family Dog Killed, Mom and Children Hospitalized After Swarm of Bees Attack Them: 'It Feels Very Unreal'

“Our family, especially our daughters, are adjusting to the absence of Kona,” Tiffany Ahmu tells PEOPLE of their late pet

A California family is coping with the loss of their beloved dog after she died from bee stings in a tragic incident that also injured several people.

Tiffany Ahmu was enjoying a “regular summer day” at her parents’ home with her family and some of her daughters’ friends on Wednesday, Aug. 7, when she says disaster struck.

“It’s something we did all the time,” the Lemon Grove resident tells PEOPLE in a statement, then detailing that the day did not end the way it usually does.

The group — Ahmu, her husband, her 8-month-old niece, her daughters and two girls who had slept over at her home — was enjoying some quality time by the pool when, out of the blue, a swarm of bees appeared and began stinging them.

Recalling the incident to local outlet KGTV, Ahmu said she heard her oldest daughter, 17, say, “Mommy, you need to come out here right now,” and walked outside to a horrifying scene. “I run out here, and it’s just a swarm of bees. I couldn’t see any blue,” she recalled. “I mean, it was just caked.”

Her husband jumped into action, throwing “every child in the shower” to combat the bee stings, she told KGTV. “He’s hosing them down, he’s swatting the bees. They’re everywhere in the bathroom; everywhere [in] the house.”

As he tended to the children, Ahmu realized that someone was still stuck outside — the family’s 12-year-old dog, Kona. “I can’t leave her out there to die,” she recalled thinking. “I come outside, and I can’t see one inch of her. She’s covered in bees.”

Describing the incident to another local outlet, KUSI, Ahmu said she “couldn’t even see” the pup’s coat. “I pick her up. She’s already limp,” she recalled. “She’s still breathing, but limp, I jump to the pool to dust the bees off and I’m covered in bees.”

Ahmu also told KUSI that she was “calling 911 the whole time and they kept repeating themselves,” telling her: “We don’t come for a bee sting ma’am, call an exterminator.”

Attempting to explain the gravity of the situation, she recalled telling them, “There are not one or two bees. I am in a blanket of bees. I need help, my skin is burning, please help.”

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Ultimately, Ahmu was hospitalized for her stings, as well her niece and the two girls who had stayed at her home the previous night.

Her niece suffered 10 bee stings but was "thankfully" not allergic, she tells PEOPLE. The other girls “only suffered two stings," she adds, "so their mother discharged them."

Her daughters, meanwhile, woke up on Thursday, Aug. 8, with “abnormally swollen stings,” she says, noting that her 17-year-old suffered the worst stings in her face. They were taken to the emergency room, treated and released the same day.

Three days after the incident, all of the children who were stung “are healing very well,” Ahmu tells PEOPLE. The mom of two, meanwhile, is “really achy and extremely exhausted,” she says.

Kona, however, did not make it.

Not only the family dog, but also her 17-year-old daughter’s registered emotional support animal, Ahmu told KUSI that Kona “had Peter Pan Syndrome … she was so spunky, still super active and hyper.”

“Our family, especially our daughters, are adjusting to the absence of Kona,” Ahmu tells PEOPLE. “It feels very unreal.”

As they cope with the loss of their beloved pet and heal from their own injuries, she adds, “We have been so blessed by the love and support of our Rock Church family and friends as we all physically heal.”

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