I was savaged by a Squirrel Nutcase

By KUSHWANT SACHDAVE, Daily Mail

Last updated at 21:21 02 August 2006


As Martine Browne strolled in the park with her two children, she stopped to point out what she thought was a friendly grey squirrel.

The result was carnage.

First it leapt on to her three-year-old son Reece's head.

And when Mrs Browne tried to shoo it away, it sank its teeth into her hands and arm, causing four deep wounds and leaving her covered in blood.

'I'm still in shock,' said the 25-year-old housewife after treatment for her injuries at the Great Western Hospital in Swindon.

'I cannot believe a squirrel would do that. There was blood everywhere, all down my arms and over my clothes. I'm scared to use that path now.'

The attack happened on Monday afternoon. Mrs Browne was strolling along a path between Gorse Hill and her home in Pinehurst, Swindon, after a trip to the shops with Reece and her six-year-old daughter Jasmin.

'It all happened so fast,' she said. 'I had the buggy with me, but I let Reece get out to run around.

I said, "Look at that squirrel" and then it jumped on Reece.

'I tried to remove the squirrel four times and it attacked me four times.'

Nurses ascertained that she had already been given a tetanus jab, dressed her wounds and gave her antibiotics.

But the wounds had re-opened by the evening and Mrs Browne needed further treatment at an NHS walk-in centre. Now she is warning other park

users to be on their guard and not to fall for the cuddly Squirrel Nutkin image fostered by Beatrix Potter stories.

Warning

She said: 'I thought squirrels were harmless. People need to be warned about them. What if it had happened to a baby or an elderly person who couldn't have fended it off?'

Les Stocker, 57, who runs the Tiggywinkles charity wildlife hospital in Buckinghamshire, said such an attack was extremely rare.

'People regularly feed squirrels now and they are used to people coming up to them. What could have happened here is that the squirrel could have come up to the boy searching for food and the mother panicked and tried to move the animal away.

'It seems the squirrel was probably feeling threatened and trying to protect itself and attacked the woman.

'When people try to stop them doing something they can bite and they can be quite nasty bites as their teeth are designed to strip bark off trees and crack through nuts.

'Fortunately squirrels do not carry any diseases which can be harmful to humans.'

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