You Will Sneeze Just Watching This ‘Pollen Bomb’

Jennifer Henderson of Millville, New Jersey, posted a 20-second video to Facebook on Monday that netted over 3 million views and 101,000 shares in less than 48 hours.

So what’s all the fuss about? Pollen.

Over 50 million Americans suffer from different types of allergies, according to the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America.

In the video, a backhoe nudges a tree while clearing some brush. After the nudge, the backhoe immediately shifts into reverse — a mammoth cloud of loosened pollen in hot pursuit.

The “pollen bomb” threatened to envelop the backhoe, driven by Jennifer Henderson’s husband, Eric, but he narrowly escapes off-screen. “When my husband said the pollen’s bad, I probably should’ve taken his word for it. Crazy!” notes the accompanying text on the now-viral video.

(Don’t miss the video below!)

“My son is [an allergy sufferer], but thankfully I’m not!” Henderson told LifeZette this week via Facebook message.

Her son is not alone. Allergy sufferers nationwide are feeling the squeeze as pollen counts soar and pharmacies are scrambling to stock allergy remedies on their shelves.

I usually never get allergies, and yet this allergy season has hit me like a truck

— kerrie (@kerriie130) May 9, 2018

Lately, the “allergy forecast map” for the continental U.S. is a sea of sunset colors. Only a small portion of the Midwest and a tiny bit of Florida are below the “medium” level, as displayed on Pollen.com. Vast swaths of the U.S., including the Northeast, are colored red, indicating a high level of pollen.

And it’s not going to be over any time soon. Tree pollen season is followed by grass pollen, which lasts through the summer. That’s followed by weed pollen in the fall.

Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and a regular contributor to LifeZette.