Posted on 07/26/2008 10:46:23 AM PDT by LibWhacker
A Levy County man accidentally shot his wife Friday morning when he tried to fend off a fox that had attacked the woman, deputies reported.
The animal was killed and will be tested for rabies due to its unusual behavior, said Levy County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Lt. Evan Sullivan.
Test results won’t be available until next week, but authorities are advising anyone who comes in contact with a wild animal exhibiting strange behavior to leave it alone and contact law enforcement.
Officers were called to an accidental shooting in the 3000 block of SE 18th Ave. in the Morriston area at about 10:30 a.m., the Sheriff’s Office reported.
A couple at the address had spotted an unknown animal in their yard and went out to investigate, Sullivan said. But, once outside, the animal attacked the woman, biting her left leg. The woman couldn’t get away from the animal and told her husband to get a gun.
The man tried to shoot the fox with a .22-caliber rifle, firing seven times. He killed the animal but also accidentally shot the woman in the lower right leg.
The fox, which was still attached to the woman’s leg, had to be pried off by paramedics on the scene, Sullivan said.
The woman was taken to Shands at the University of Florida and was in stable condition, Sullivan said.
The Levy County Environmental Health Department in Bronson will house the fox’s body before it is turned over to a lab in Tampa for rabies testing.
The Sheriff's Office listed the fox as a red female fox, but after reviewing a picture of the animal, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission said it was a gray fox, which is more commonly found in the state.
No charges are pending in connection with the shooting, Sullivan said.
Yes, I would say you are correct. Foxes can be curious and will come snooping around but I have never known them to be aggressive towards humans unless they are rabid.
I also know that if a Fox bites me I do not want this guy to help me, lol.
He may have had better luck using the rifle as a club.
Or not ......
"The man tried to club the fox with a .22-caliber rifle, hitting it seven times. He killed the animal but also accidentally shot himself in the head when the gun discharged on the last strike."
What made you think to make that comment, Officer Jackboot?
You sure he was aiming for the fox?
Exsqueeze me? We're now permitted to kill rabid animals attacking family members without fear of prosecution? Yea for freedom! Doh!
Fox AKA Angelina Jolie in the movie "Wanted".
Is it really going to be any easier to hit a wildly-moving target at zero range? I would think that the amount of uncertainty related to motion of the object between the trigger finger's command to fire and the arrival of the bullet would be relatively independent of range, at least up to 50' or so, and control of the weapon would be much easier if one's target is moving over a smaller angle. Rifles are not meele weapons.
As for the woman's life being at risk, she'll probably want want to get rabies shots whether or not she was infected (the fox by the sound of it most likely was) but I would think that allowing the fox to continue to bite her would elevate the risk of infection. Not that a .22LR bullet wound is going to help, but I wouldn't consider his actions unreasonable.
No. The poster wanted the husband to place the muzzle against the fox and then pull the trigger. Failing that, don’t shoot.
Even if the gun is against the fox when the brain tells the trigger-finger to fire, that doesn't mean it's still going to be there when the gun does fire.
As for "don't shoot", I'm not sure what alternative course of action would rate to be better. I don't think the fox was going to leave on its own, and if not stopped it could have continued to do more damage. So either do nothing for a few minutes, or else try to stop the fox some other way. But with what? The "lock time" for a rifle is a lot shorter than the lock time for a blunt-object weapon. So swing at the fox with a baseball bat and maybe hit the woman? That seems brilliant.
I can imagine the woman was thrashing around and hollering quite a bit. In such case that a person is in a state of panic, even clubbing the fox would be a challenge due to the uncertainty as to where the wifes leg will be.
As I previously mentioned, my aunt used her garden hoe to kill a rabid fox that attacked her while she was working in her garden. I've noticed over the years that a surprising number of rabid fox -vs- human encounters involve the fox being clubbed/hacked/impaled with a garden tool either by the intended victim or a rescuer.
As for the woman's life being at risk, she'll probably want want to get rabies shots whether or not she was infected (the fox by the sound of it most likely was) but I would think that allowing the fox to continue to bite her would elevate the risk of infection.
She'll for sure need rabies shots, antibiotics and who knows what else. According to the article, the fox appears to have clamped down on the woman rather than repeatedly biting her as the paramedics had to pry the jaws loose so, it doesn't sound like she suffered a severe mauling.
Not that a .22LR bullet wound is going to help, but I wouldn't consider his actions unreasonable.
I agree. Since I don't have all the facts, I can't sit in judgement seat. Perhaps he shouted for his wife to hold still and just as he fired, she moved. Who knows? In such a melee, one shot in the wifes leg and seven in the fox is a pretty good outcome.
Country people are known for their ability to maintain presence of mind in an emergency.
Now that you mention it whenever we had to kill things around the farm as a kid nine times out of ten it was always the good ole hoe that got the call.
Doesn't even mean the bullet is going to go when you aim it. .22s that hit bone are famous for bouncing around and heading off in unexpected directions.
Swinging sideways would be a dumb thing to do. What you would want to do is swing down across the backbone either breaking it or stunning the animal so badly it breaks off the attack and you can quickly deliver follow up blows. Worst case when swinging down is you miss the fox and graze wifeys leg or hit her foot...and then the fox attacks you before you can recover. Although, it seems that when psycho, they have a tunnel vision that tends to keep them locked onto their original victim
If you're lucky, you have one of those weed rakes with the five long sharp tines, a hoe with weed prongs on the reverse side or, a pitchfork. Once you get a tine or two in him, the battle has sort of shifted decidedly in your favor.
Perhaps, but a .22LR is generally going to have more effect on a fox than on a person's leg (not that one tries for the latter, of course). Sometimes life doesn't offer any safe answers.
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