Joan Heblack and Isabel Campoy, both residents of San Rafael, California, report being viciously attacked by squirrels. The women suffered wounds serious enough to need treatment in the emergency room and now the whole neighborhood is terrified of the squirrels.
"It just clamped onto my leg and was just hanging on. The tail was flying up here, I was like get off me! get off me! I didn't want to touch it," Heblack told WKRC News there. "[It came] out of nowhere. I didn't see him running up to me at all."
Campoy's tale is no less harrowing: "[the squirrel] tried to jump up to my face, which I tried to protect and then my arm was completely overcome by the squirrel. Finally it jumped off and by then I was full of blood, I ran to the emergency room."
Flyers now adorn nearby telephone poles warning passers-by of the sciurid menace.
ATTACK SQUIRREL BEWARE!!!!!!!!
THIS IS NOT A JOKE MORE THAN 5 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN ATTACKED BY A VERY MEAN SQUIRREL OVER THE PAST FEW DAYS ON DIABLO CIRCLE.AND MOUNT LASSEN.
SEVERAL HAVE GONE TO ER FOR SEVERE LECERATIONS (sic).
THE SQUIRREL COMES OUT OF NOWHERE AND WILL ATTACK (rest of text obscured)
Note that the flyer depicts this stock photo of an adorable Red Squirrel, found in Europe but not in California, domain of ratlike, disease-spreading Gray Squirrels. Here's a local news blip about the attacks:
