New Hampshire father strangles coyote that attacked his child
A New Hampshire man killed a coyote with his bare hands after the animal attacked his young child, according to police.
Authorities had received multiple calls regarding a violent coyote Monday morning prior to its encounter with the family, the Kensington Police Department said in a press release.
Around 8:40 a.m., police in Hampton Falls received a report of a coyote attacking a vehicle on Drinkwater Road near on Drinkwater Road, near the boarder of Hampton Falls and Kensington.
The Kensington Police Department received a call about 20 minutes later from a 62-year-old woman who stated that she and her dogs were attacked by a coyote on her porch on Hemlock Road after she opened the sliding door to her home.
In that incident, the dogs retreated into the home, and the coyote attempted to follow them inside, police said. The woman was bitten as she fought to keep the coyote out of her home. She was treated at the hospital, and she and her dogs both received a first round of rabies shots.
Around 11 a,m., the same coyote attacked a family walking on a trail in Exeter, prompting the father of the child to go "into protection mode," police said.
The man "suffocated the coyote until it succumbed," police said.
Ian O'Reilly told Manchester ABC affiliate WMUR that the coyote grabbed his 2-year-old son by his jacket and he stepped in to save his son.
"In the middle of the moment you're not really thinking or recording a whole lot," O'Reilly told WMUR. "It's really just instinct. The fact that when we tried to kick and push and get rid of him, it became clear that he was not disengaging."
He was bitten on his forearm and chest as he shoved the animal's snout into the snow, he said.
Kensington police had shared a photo of a coyote chasing a car earlier in the day and warned residents, though it's not clear if it's the same one.
Human-coyote encounters in suburban areas are typically rare, even in places where coyotes are found in large numbers, according to the Humane Society. Coyotes are nocturnal, seldom seen during the daytime and are usually scared away by the presence of the human.
Officers from the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department have taken the coyote's body to be tested for rabies.
ABC News' Darren Reynolds contributed to this report.
