Fox attacks five-week old baby
16 February Daily Telegraph
The fox which attacked a five-week-old baby saw him as a piece of
chicken, the child's mother has claimed.Hayley Cawley, 28, heard Dennie
screaming and was forced to hit and kick the wild animal as it tried to
drag her son from their home.But the more she hit it the more it pulled
the baby, so she grabbed hold of Dennie's wrist and "tore" his hand from
the fox's jaws, Miss Cawley told The Sun.She had left the child propped
up on the sofa as she nipped upstairs, but came running down when she
heard his screams and found him being attacked at their home in Bromley,
South East London.
He was spattered with blood and his head was banging against the wall
as the animal dragged him toward the front door by his left hand, she
said.The animal became trapped as Dennie's head was lodged in the corner
of the door frame at their wo-bedroom council house, and Miss Cawley
began kicking and hitting it, she said."I was screaming, 'Help me!' I
got hold of Dennie's wrist and I tore it out of the fox's mouth. I had
no other choice," she said."Its teeth were all showing and it was making
this awful noise, hissing and growling."She picked the child up and shut
the door, but fears if she had been seconds later she never would have
seen her baby again."The fox would have found a way of getting him out
of that door. It saw Dennie as a 10lb piece of chicken to eat," she told
The Sun.Too afraid to look at Dennie's bleeding hand she rang 999 and
told them that "a fox had attacked my baby and I thought he was going to
die".
Dennie was rushed to King's College Hospital, in Camberwell, and Miss
Cawley said he "looked like a ghost".She and her partner Paul Dolan, 27,
were told two of his arteries had been severed.He was then taken to the
Evelina Children's Hospital where surgeons operated for five hours to
reattach his finger. There is a 70 per cent chance he will never recover
full use of his finger.The front door had been left ajar, the family
believe, when Mr Dolan left to collect the two older children from
school and slammed it shut, meaning the latch did not catch.Dennie is
now back with his parents. They are too afraid to return home and have
been re-housed temporarily. When she went back to collect some
belongings a fox appeared at the front door.
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