COEUR d'ALENE - Bees were everywhere that day.

They buzzed, they swarmed. The campground at Beauty Bay, normally so peaceful and serene, was infested.

"The bees were so bad," said Linda Paullas, now 47. "They were crazy bad. I'd never seen them like that."

She and her family decided to leave early. With camp broken, with only the tent to pack up, a bee stung Paullas on the arm.

Almost instantly, her throat began to close. Her tongue swelled, and adrenaline started coursing through her body. She couldn't breathe.

Paullas was allergic to bees, and she was dying.

Her two nephews called 911. The wait was agonizing, but firefighters arrived just in time.

"To the best of my recollection, she was lying on the ground, gasping for breath," recalled Coeur d'Alene firefighter Eric Paul. "It was probably the most severe reaction I'd seen."

The date was Aug. 27, 2004. Several years later, after more than 300 shots at Asthma and Allergy of North Idaho, Paullas received her final allergy injection on Monday afternoon. She's now fully desensitized, she said. If a bee stings her, it'll hurt. She might swell up, turn red, but she will not die.

And that's cause for celebration.

"I get to do all these things, and I don't have to dodge bullets anymore," Paullas said. "It's like dodging bullets when you're allergic to bees. Bees are everywhere, you know?"

To commemorate the occasion, the Cd'A firefighters who once saved her life at Beauty Bay - Paul, his colleagues Craig Etherton and Matt Sowa - were at the clinic Monday. Paullas handed out bee-shaped trophies, thanking the men for all they had done.

"I wanted them to know that I did (finish my treatment)," she said. "And I told them they'd never have to save my life again - not from being stung by a bee."

She talked about that fateful day, about the frantic moments after the bee landed on her arm. Travis, 15, and Dakota Nelson, 12, her nephews (two young men she had helped raise from birth - she calls them her "nephew-sons") remained by her side throughout the ordeal, she said.

"I just tried to stay as calm as I could," Paullas said. "I thought I was going to die. That's how I felt."

With their aunt struggling to breathe, the two boys ran to the camp hosts and asked for a phone, Dakota remembered. At first the hosts were uncooperative - they told the boys to go down to the KOA campsite.

"We need your phone now," said the 15 year-old Travis, raising his voice. "She's going to die if you don't give us your phone."

The hosts relented, and the boys reached the fire department. Travis held his aunt's hand while the trucks were en route, yelling at her, imploring her to breathe, to survive.

"We just waited, and waited, and waited. It seemed like forever," Dakota said.

At last the firefighters reached Beauty Bay. The Coeur d'Alene firemen, aided by personnel from Kootenai County Fire and Rescue, threaded a breathing tube down Paullas's restricted airway and gave her sedatives. Firefighter Cory Anderson, who has since relocated to Seattle, took the lead.

"We were taking care of Linda for 15 minutes, probably," Paul said.

Paullas was loaded into an ambulance, driven to an open, marshy area, and airlifted to the hospital by helicopter. The firefighters made sure the boys got home safe.

But Paullas' struggles were not over. Five years of treatment lay ahead, painful shots that would eventually immunize her against the deadly allergic reactions. In order to simulate a bee sting, clinicians basically injected her with venom, Paullas said.

There were four shots per week, year after year.

"You can't miss (a shot)," Paullas said. "You can't just start over. The doses have to be regular. This is a tortuous thing. I would not wish this on my enemy to have to go through five years of these shots."

Her best friend, Christina Chase, accompanied her to every appointment. The pair would grab coffee, go to Jamba Juice, watch a movie the night before - anything to keep Paullas's mind off the shots.

"She whines a little bit, but I haven't had to wrestle her," Chase said with a grin.

Paullas promised her nephews she would finish, and finish she has. She's looking forward to camping again. She can work in the garden, too. Bees no longer dominate her life, dictate her every activity.

"I'm quite proud to be done," she said.