Posted on 11/13/2007 7:48:10 PM PST by BGHater
ORLANDO, Fla. -- A 3-year-old boy, a Florida Highway Patrol trooper and another adult were hurt on Wednesday afternoon in a bizarre attack by a squirrel on a day care playground.
It happened at the Children's Academy Daycare on Oak Ridge Road in Orange County.
Kevin Santiago, 3, was bitten nine times while playing on the playground, according to Yietza Santiago, the boy's mother.
"There was a 3-year-old little boy sitting on the swing. The squirrel attacked him and didn't want to get off of the child. We threw things at it to try to get it off and nothing. Finally, we were able to take it off," day care director Maritza Diaz said.
The trooper, who was working an accident near the playground, responded, and FHP spokeswoman Kim Miller said he was jumped by the animal. He tried to shoo the squirrel away, but it attacked again and scratched and bit him before he could escape.
He was treated and released at a local Centra Care for his injuries.
Squirrel attacks on humans are uncommon, but the rodents are known to bite if they are injured or feel trapped. Officials said the squirrel may be rabid, but officials said getting rabies from squirrels is unlikely.
Doctors often advise bite victims not to undergo post-bite rabies treatments, unless the squirrel attacked for no apparent reason.
The squirrel in the playground attack managed to escape.
I don’t know nuthin’.
SQUIRREL! (THose at teh BEC will know what I’m talkin about! : )
Were those Mississippi tags on the getaway car?
“Doctors often advise bite victims not to undergo post-bite rabies treatments, unless the squirrel attacked for no apparent reason.”
You gotta be kidding me, “unless the squirrel attacked for no apparent reason”?
What the heck would be “apparent reasons” for squirrel attacks?
Did the child cut in front of the squirrel and got on the swing out of turn?
Okay... What apparent reason was there for this squirrel to attack a little boy on a swing?
Idiots.
I hope that kid gets rabies shots. Even though it’s incredibly rare for squirrels to transmit rabies, the behavior of that particular squirrel is incredibly rare too, and in a way that’s consistent with rabies. Sometimes squirrels will jump on you if they have reason to think you have a nut for them (has happened to me, but with a squirrel I regularly gave peanuts to), but to keep hanging on and biting a screaming child AND then stick around to jump the grown man who arrives to help??? That’s really deranged behavior for a squirrel.
I’ve heard of pretzel logic, but never squirrel reasoning. What, indeed, constitutes good or bad reasoning on the part of a squirrel or squirrel interest group?
Everyone has an embarrassing uncle Harry in the family! LOL
Squirrel probably suffering from post trematic stress from being a spy in Iran.
"Enemy subdued!"
Touch my fries and you're a dead man!
“...(attacking) squirrel...managed to escape.”
These little creatures sometimes have a condition akin to CJD, where they develop dimentia and their brains turn into a tangled mass of neurons. Cows get something similiar called Mad Cow Disease. It is all caused by prions, or folded protein.
Unfortunately people can get it by eating squirrel brains. In parts of the south this is considered a delicacy and is a deadly habit.
I was bitten by a squirrel that had fallen down the chimney, when I chased it around the house and finally caught it. They are hard to catch, I darn near had to use the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch on it. That thing was dynamite!
"You'll never take me alive, Copper!!"
The kid had WMDs - walnuts most delicious.
My picture was taken in the park at Wheatland, Wyoming. Obviously somebody had stopped by Burger King, picked up lunch, and ate in the park. This guy and his buddy were two of the fattest squirrels I’ve ever seen.
Ba$tard, you owe me a new keyboard...
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