UNDATED (WHDH) – A play date in the woods took a turn for the worst on Sunday.
An 11-year-old Irie Campbell, and her friend Piper were hanging out with Irie’s five-year-old brother behind Piper’s house in Vermont.
“My brother was standing right over there in that area and then all of a sudden he started to scream and run up the hill,” said Campbell.
Around noon, the kids said a hissing raccoon appeared out of nowhere.
“I was terried and shocked at the same time,” said Campbell.
It went straight for her and jumped at her face first.
“I put my hands up to my face like this. And then it grabs onto my thumb. I started to choke it with my left hand and then it started to fall off and then it grabbed a hold of me right here. I started to choke it with both hands,” said Campbell.
She suffered six bites, including one big one on her thigh. While the little boy screamed for help, 10-year-old Piper got into the fight.
“And she got it a stick and she poked it and she started hitting it a little, which helped out a lot,” said Campbell.
Piper said she just wanted to help.
“I already had the stick and I don’t now really what I was thinking. I just thought to try and get it off Irie,” she said.
The raccoon eventually let go and ran off into the woods. Irie was rushed to the emergency room where she immiediately began treatment for possible rabies exposure.
“No parent even wants to get a call that your kid has been attacked by a wild animal,” said the victim’s father, Derek Campbell.
He said he is proud of his daughter and grateful that her brave 10-year-old friend stopped the attack from being even worse.
“Piper is a little hero. She is a cool kid. I mean, Piper is a tough kid. She is one that will just, I mean, she will barrel down any run at the ski mountain,” he said.
Piper is legall blind with a degenerative disorder.