That's pretty interesting.
In the early days of handheld brush trimmers we wore harnesses. We were cutting saplings in a wood with blades instead of strings. I remember a fellow worker on the crew ahead of me suddenly frantically trying to unharness, and finally pulling it off over his head and throwing the whole rig -- running trimmer and all off to the right. Then running towards me, and yelling over the noise of my trimmer as he passed, arms flailing, "Bees!!"
He'd hit a big underground yellowjacket nest. Seemed a good time for me to depart the area as well.

Seems like that one would be easier to let go of than the old harness style, when in a hurry.