Squirrel proves to be real 'Rocky'
By Byron Crawford
Louisville Courier-Journal
"Bizarre."
That's the word Kenzie Ison used to describe the behavior of a male fox squirrel
that attacked and bit his 10-year-old son, Kaleb - and later attacked and bit
him - and reportedly either jumped on or bit several other people in the Owens
Branch area of Perry County over the past three weeks.
"My son said he was going up the road on his bike and saw the squirrel sitting
in the tree, and stopped and said, 'Hello, little squirrelly,' " Ison said. "At
which time it jumped off the tree and took after him. He tried to ride away from
it, and it got up on his bicycle a couple of times, then got up on his leg - and
he had short pants on - and it sliced his leg above his right ankle, across the
back side."
Dr. J. Dustin Chaney, the attending emergency room physician at Appalachian
Regional Hospital in Hazard where the boy was treated, said he had never
encountered such an incident involving a squirrel and was not able to find any
such reference in a medical literature review.
"There were two puncture marks where the squirrel had bitten him, and there was
probably about a 3-inch laceration across the Achilles tendon where the squirrel
had gotten hold of him - and there were a lot of other scratches on his leg,
too," Chaney said.
Reaching safety
Diane Sparkman, a Perry County school bus driver who lives near where Kaleb was
attacked, said she and her mother had stopped their car nearby to chat with
Kaleb's friend, 11-year-old Logan Sexton, who was fishing in a stream nearby.
She said they heard Kaleb screaming and looked up to see the squirrel chasing
him.
"It chased me 50 or 60 yards and jumped up on my tire a few times, and whenever
I got off I kicked it, and it bit me," Kaleb said. "They told me to get in the
car. ... I watched it, and it was attacking my bike."
Melissa Shepherd, a nurse who lives nearby, administered first aid to Kaleb's
wounds.
"The state veterinarian's office gave us some good news that they've never had a
case of rabies involving a squirrel, which was my worry," said Kenzie Ison, an
herb exporter.
In the meantime, several residents began telling of run-ins, apparently with the
same squirrel .
Dr. Mike Auslander, state public health veterinarian, said the squirrel might
have been someone's pet at one time, or "there are lots of different diseases
that cause brain infections or behavior changes."
Enough is enough
After the squirrel chased his son and a friend the second time a few days ago
and bit his son on the boot, Ison said he took out his shotgun.
"I walked all the way up past where it happened before, and turned around and
started walking back down ... and I stepped over into the edge of a lady's yard
and was looking up in the trees, and the next thing I know it hits me right in
the middle of the back," Ison said.
The animal fell onto Ison's right leg and bit his inner thigh near the groin
before he was able to knock it to the ground and kick it into the yard.
"Then it comes back at me, and I don't have time to shoot, so I golf-club it
with my shotgun barrel," he said. "It rolls out through the grass and gets up
and shakes that off and comes at me again, and I golf-club it again. It did that
three times."
Finally, Ison was able to get a shot off as the squirrel retreated and
eventually killed the animal, which will be examined by state health officials.
"It sounds like this squirrel has been fed by people, but still that's a pretty
big step for a squirrel to be habituated by people and get violent," said
biologist John Morgan of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources.
"It is probably very unlikely that it is rabies, but it would seem wise to test
it."
Byron Crawford writes about life in Kentucky for the Courier-Journal in
Louisville. Reach him at [email hidden].
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050615/NEWS0103/506150410/1059/NEWS01