A possum holds a woman "hostage" at her home in New Zealand

A woman in New Zealand called the police with an emergency: a possum was holding her "hostage."

Every time she stepped outside her house, trying to reach her car, the possum charged after her and ran up her leg. "I pulled it off me, thinking it was a cat, and then I saw it was a possum," she said, according to UPI. She ran back inside, feeling trapped in her own home.

After her emergency call, an officer kindly stopped by to help. But the officer didn't get too far from his car before the excited possum spotted the officer's leg and climbed right up.

From The Guardian:

When the police arrived and approached the front door, a juvenile possum came out of the dark and climbed an officer's leg. Dinnissen suspected it was either an escaped pet or had recently been separated from its mother.

After apprehending the suspect, police delivered the possum up to nearby lookout spot Signal Hill and released it into the wild "to prevent further citizen harassment". No harm came to the possum or the officer, Dinnessen said.

Veterinarian and animal behaviour expert Dr Rachael Stratton suggested the possum was acting out of fear rather than aggression.

"The typical thing for most wild animals would be to run away. Unless, as it's a juvenile, it is perhaps still learning how to deal with threats."

The possum may have had fewer options for places to run and hide, because it was in an urban environment, she said.