Serial Attacker Squirrel Puts Two People in the ER After Pouncing on Calif. Residents

Some California residents are on high alert after a series of squirrel attacks have sent individuals to the emergency room.

Neighbors in San Rafael, Calif., told ABC7 on Monday, Sept. 22, they have been the target of mauling by a local squirrel. The city is approximately an hour north of San Francisco.

“It clamped onto my leg. The tail was flying up here. I was like, ‘Get it off me, get off me!’ I didn’t want to touch it,” Joan Heblack, who had been taking a morning stroll in Lucas Valley at the time of the incident, said of her experience with the wild animal.

Heblack added that the squirrel “came out of nowhere.”

Though the squirrel may be small, it still did substantial damage to her leg by sinking its claws into her skin. Her wounds were visible in photos ABC7 included in their broadcast.

She said the ordeal was “very scary” as she tried to figure out how to free herself from its grasp. 

There have been at least five attacks reported, and the same gold-brown animal is believed to be responsible for all. Flyers posted in the area state, “THIS IS NOT A JOKE.”

Another San Rafael resident who crossed paths with the squirrel, Isabel Campoy, told ABC7 that she and her niece Carmen were outdoors in the same area when they were attacked by the squirrel. The incident is making it hard for them to enjoy their neighborhood, Campoy said.

“This is beautiful, now it’s following us, until she almost killed me,” Campoy said.

Campoy’s injuries were much more severe than Heblack’s. ABC7 showed footage of several gashes across her arm, still red from healing. 

“Squirrel went from the floor tried to jump up to my face, I tried to protect my face, my arm was completely overcome by squirrel,” Campoy said of how she got her defensive wounds. “Finally it jumped off, by then I was full of blood. I [ran] to the emergency room.”

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Compoy’s niece Carmen said she was also shocked by the amount of blood caused by the squirrel and its claws.

Vanessa Potter from WildCare in San Rafael told ABC7 that the unprovoked attacks are “not unheard of,” and added that rabies is likely not a factor. 

She recommends individuals to exercise caution when feeding wild animals as it can sometimes lead to them approaching humans without fear. 

“If they associate people with food, they’re not afraid of them. They will look for food. If they don’t get it, there can be frustrations. They can be territorial of their space,” Potter said.

Back in 2021, a dozen and a half people were attacked and injured by a grey squirrel in Buckley, Flintshire over just two days, as BBC reported at the time. The squirrel — nicknamed Stripe, after the Gremlins character — was later captured, examined by a vet, and euthanized.

A year earlier five people in one neighborhood of Queens, New York were the victims of squirrel attacks, per WABC. One witness told the outlet at the time, “When we leave the house, we have to carry mom’s homemade pepper spray to make sure if it comes at us, we spray it.”