Fox Bites Woman for Shooing it Away

Last week in the United Kingdom, Deborah Adams told of her terrifying moment where a fox had lunged at her and sank its teeth into her.

A mother of 4, Mrs. Adams was just trying to shoo the fox out of harm’s way in a country lane when the fox just lunged at her and tore a lump of flesh out of her arm. As a result of trying to do a nice thing, Mrs. Adams lost feeling in the lower part of her left arm. She has also had to spend 10 days in hospital to recover from plastic surgery and skin grafts.

A snarling fox

Mrs. Adams told Reports about how she was bitten by the fox. She had stopped her Peugot 206 in a country lane near her home in Fraddon, Cornwall, after seeing the fox lying on the road. In an attempt to get the fox to run away, she flashed the car headlights and beeped the horn. However, it remained still so she tried to coax it in order to move the fox out of the way so that she could get home – but unfortunately the fox had other ideas and pounced on her.

“It happened so quickly. After it bit me, it ran off. I wrapped a towel round my arm and drove home. There was a lot of blood. It was very frightening,” she said.

Her husband, Michael, took her to the local hospital to dress this deep wound. However, it became infected and she was forced to undergo several operations to remove the affected flesh and do a skin graft.

Mr. Adams said, “Instead of letting go it kept its jaws closed and tore out a piece.” Joking about her injuries, Mrs. Adams said that the fox may have recognised her from a local hunt that she took part in on New Years’ Day and wondered if the fox was getting revenge.

Recalling the attack, Mrs. Adams said, “I saw the fox in the middle of a single-track road, which is very bendy. I flashed my lights and the fox didn’t move, which I thought was strange, so I edged closer and it still didn’t move. I got out and approached it to make sure it was still alive. It leapt at my outstretched arm as I was shooing it away. I was trying to do it no harm. Doctors suggested maybe the fox had been struck by a car and was dazed, which is why it reacted.”

It will take several months for her skin to heal properly as the infection still has to clear up even though the skin graft has covered the wound. This is not the first time a fox has attacked in residential areas. Last month, a fox crept through a cat flap and attacked Tammy Page, an ambulance worker, in her own house. Ms. Page found the fox in her kitchen in the middle of the night. As she tried to move to fox out into her garden in West Sussex, the fox lunged at her and bit the top of her finger off.