WEYMOUTH, MASS. (WHDH) - A Weymouth toddler is at home recovering after she was attacked by a rabid skunk in her backyard Monday.
Two-year-old Fatima was playing outside her family home while her mom and grandmother were getting dinner ready on the back deck when the skunk appeared behind a kayak.
“We were just yelling at her to, ‘Come to us, come to us!’ Fatima’s grandmother Betty Bennette said. “Well, she didn’t come but the skunk did.”
Now, her arms are covered with scratches and there is a bite mark on her leg after a rabid skunk bit right through her pants and sent her to the hospital.
“This is not a normal skunk,” Fatima’s mother Marwa Elkhouly recalled thinking. “That’s not gonna just spray. That’s attacking.”
The rabid animal chased her mom and grandmother from the back deck to a side door.
“The skunk chased [Marwa] and myself into the house,” Bennette said. “I got the back door shut just as it was trying to come in.”
The family then came out a back door and that is when the skunk latched on to Fatima’s leg and would not let go.
“I tried to carry her and I kicked him away,” Elkhouly said. “He was holding her so I put her down a little and I kicked him like you know, leave her, leave her and I kicked him until he let her go.”
The family called for first responders and firefighters arriving at the scene found the skunk and killed it.
Animal control told the family that tests showed the skunk was rabid.
Now, Fatima is back to playing in the yard. She has already undergone one round of rabies shots but will need three more to ensure the infection does not take hold.
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