{"id":171577,"date":"2025-09-26T22:26:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-26T22:26:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/171577\/"},"modified":"2025-09-26T22:26:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T22:26:10","slug":"squirrels-gone-wild-marin-county-attack-squirrel-sends-at-least-3-to-the-er","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/171577\/","title":{"rendered":"Squirrels Gone Wild: Marin County \u2018Attack Squirrel\u2019 Sends at Least 3 to the ER"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cShe kept on coming towards us, and we thought that was kind of interesting, because they usually run away,\u201d Ayoob recalled.<\/p>\n

The squirrel jumped up on the ledge of the couple\u2019s wooden fence, close enough for Marie to snap a photo. Then, things got dicey.<\/p>\n

The squirrel began gnawing at the fence, chipping away big chunks of wood.<\/p>\n

Joe yelled for it to scram and swatted at it with his baseball cap, his wife said.<\/p>\n

\"\"Marie Ayoob snapped this photo of a squirrel in her background in San Rafael on Sept. 25, 2025, before it attacked her husband. (Courtesy of Marie Ayoob )<\/p>\n

\u201cShe jumped on his head, scratched his ear and then landed on his leg,\u201d Marie said. \u201cHe pushed her off, and she finally scurried away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple went to the emergency room to make sure the scratches weren\u2019t dangerous. Squirrels don\u2019t carry rabies, she was told, and Joe was sent home with a clean bill of health.<\/p>\n

But the next day, the same squirrel, they said, returned to the scene of the crime \u2014 to chomp at a mop lying in the Ayoobs\u2019 backyard \u2014 and, it seems, terrorize other neighbors in the Lucas Valley neighborhood north of San Rafael.<\/p>\n

A flyer posted around the neighborhood, notifying residents of a \u201cvery mean squirrel,\u201d warned, \u201cThis is not a joke five people have been attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n

Joan Heblack was out for her usual morning walk last Sunday when she felt something heavy glom onto her leg.<\/p>\n

\u201cI didn\u2019t see it come from anywhere, I wasn\u2019t by any trees or bushes \u2014 I was walking in the middle of the street,\u201d she told KQED. \u201cI was trying to bat it off, but it wouldn\u2019t get off. It just clung more, and I was swinging my leg around and screaming.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said she jogged home, told her husband and went to the emergency room to get the bleeding scratches on her legs examined. Heblack was prescribed an antibiotic for her wounds.<\/p>\n

Heblack said that she had heard from a neighbor that a day before her attack, another woman was bitten by \u2014 they believe \u2014 the same squirrel.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard about that incident, and it happened on the [same] street, but I just thought, \u2018It\u2019s not going to happen to me.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cShe kept on coming towards us, and we thought that was kind of interesting, because they usually run…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171578,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[49,48,66,323],"class_list":{"0":"post-171577","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171577\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}