“It is just crazy,” says Barbara Strain as she recounts the harrowing encounter she and her husband Ed had with a suspected rabid fox on Father’s Day. “About every thirty minutes Ed and I still just look at each other and go, ‘Can you believe that happened?'”
Strain says she was working outside in her garden and had just walked into the garage when the fox approached. Odd behavior for a normally shy creature she thought. “It had a crazy look in its eyes. I didn’t see any foaming at the mouth but it looked sick,” she says. “It looked really unhealthy.” Strain picked up a broom to shoo it away and that’s when she says the fox lunged at her. Fortunately for her, a feral cat distracted the fox and it went off running, chasing the cat deep into the woods.
Or so she thought.
After warning her husband Ed about the strange acting fox and calling 911 to report it, Barbara went on about her business. It wasn’t long though before she heard her husband yelling.
“I ran downstairs and the fox was back on the front porch!” She recounts the frightening episode. “He (Ed) just kept hitting it and shaking it and it just would not let go. It was so bizarre.”
READ: Cornelia animal control still looking for suspected rabid fox
Intently focused on his chore of tying up his wife’s roses to the front porch, Ed Strain did not see the fox reemerge from the woods. His wife says the fox attacked “unprovoked” and starting biting her husband’s feet and legs, then his hands and arms. “I guess at one point the fox tore his finger,” she says. When she got to the front door her husband was yelling and bleeding, unable to shake off his attacker.
“Ed was trying to make it to the front door and it lunged up close to his waist and he grabbed it around the neck and around the back and slammed it down on the sidewalk,” she says. That bought Ed enough time to get inside the house but the fox didn’t give up. Barbara says he kept on coming as if he wanted inside. “It was really spooky,” she says, the disbelief still evident in her voice.
Her disbelief is understandable.
Barbara says in their thirty years living on Tower Mountain they’ve never had a wildlife encounter like this. “We’ve always enjoyed so much peace and quiet up here,” she says, “and to not even be able to walk out right now…it’s just …we’re very anxious!” Adding to her anxiety is the fact that her husband stands over six feet tall. “As fierce and as vicious as this fox was, from what I saw watching Ed battle it, it could kill a child easily.”
Ed Strain suffered over fifty puncture wounds on his body and received stitches for the gash in his finger. He’s also undergoing a series of rabies shots. Overall though, his wife says, he’s doing well. She’s grateful for emergency crews’ quick response. “The EMTs were here in no time and the ambulance was here just right after so we knew from the very beginning that it wasn’t life threatening.” In spite of that she says, “It’s still kind of spooky.”
Barbara says her husband is now carrying a gun with him when he’s outside and she urges others to use caution and stay alert, especially when walking and running around Chenocetah Tower. “We all enjoy the national forest,” she explains, “but now it just makes you look over your shoulder. We weren’t safe on our front porch!”
