SOMERVILLE, Mass. -- One Massachusetts woman had a frightening encounter with nature this past weekend, WFXT reported.
Katherine Vanbuskirk says she has occasionally seen raccoons in her Somerville neighborhood over the past few decades, but never like the one she came face-to-face with on Saturday morning.
"Don't go near them. They do attack," Vanbuskirk said. "They become monsters."
Cut up and bruised, Vanbuskirk relived the terrifying moments she was viciously attacked by the animal early Saturday morning.
The Somerville native said she was letting her dogs, Ruby and Blue, out to the garden around 1 a.m. local time when all of a sudden, she said, a raccoon jumped at her face while she was on the deck.
"It flew at me from several different directions," Vanbuskirk said.
That raccoon clawed her face, scratched her arms and gnawed at her hands and legs while she desperately fought it off.
Each time though, she says it would just charge back even more aggressively.
Somehow, she was able to escape and close her deck door, bloodied, but able to call 911.
"All I could do was scream, 'Help me! Help me!'" Vanbuskirk said.
Vanbuskirk was given rabies shots and antibiotics at a nearby hospital, but her biggest concern was for Ruby, who still had not been spotted since the attack.
She said he was eventually found that morning, cowering inside behind the TV.
"This is horrible. This is a nightmare. I kept saying it to myself because I couldn't find any other words. I just encountered a monster," Vanbuskirk said.
On Sunday, she was spreading coyote urine across her garden to keep those animals away.
She believes the raccoon was feeding from her compost bin off the deck and wants others nearby to take extra precautions.
"If that changes my community, it's all the better for me," Vanbuskirk said.
Vanbuskirk said she'll have to take medication daily for the foreseeable future, but she is expected to make a full recovery.
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