A woman told of her panic after she woke “covered in blood” to find a fox in her bedroom after the animal had apparently savaged her arm.
Jodie Nailard said she woke up startled at about 5.30am on Sunday after feeling a sharp pain in her bicep and discovered the four-legged culprit lingering at the end of her bed in Clapham, south London.
The 22-year-old said the fox was sent flying on to the floor after she sat bolt upright after noticing her arm was bleeding.
Jodie suffered six puncture wounds to her bicep after the animal snuck into her room through patio doors which she and her boyfriend, Harry King, had left open.
Jodie told The Sun: “My left bicep was throbbing with pain and covered in blood and I wondered what the hell had happened.
“Then I saw a fox at the end of my bed and I just screamed and burst into tears.
“As I sat up I accidentally kicked it and it jumped off the bed and ran out of the door.”
The fox didn’t leave the room immediately, with Harry forced to throw pillows at it to get it to flee.
Jodie, a personal assistant, was worried she had contracted rabies and was kept in hospital for two days and vaccinated against rabies, tetanus and polio.
“I’m just grateful it didn’t go for my face,” she told the newspaper.
“I’m not sure whether it came in specifically to attack me or it bit me because I moved my arm and startled it.”
Fox attacks are rare but not uncommon in the UK.
In February, seven-month-old Raeya Wyatt was left with horrific injuries after she was mauled by a fox that snuck into her Devon home, biting her as she slept.
In 2013, four-week-old Denny Dolan had his finger nearly bitten off as a fox pulled him from the sofa at his home in Downham, south east London and in 2010, twins Isabella and Lola Koupparis were left with injuries to their arms and faces after they were mauled by an animal in their cots in Hackney, east London.