Rooster Pecks Woman To Death After Causing Freak, Devastating Vein Injury
AUSTRALIA (CBSNewYork) – A woman has been killed by an aggressive rooster after the bird's pecking caused a shocking and horrific loss of blood.
According to medical professionals reporting the case in the journal Forensic Science, Medicine, and Pathology, the 76-year-old in Australia was collecting eggs when the rooster started pecking at her left leg.
Medical examiners say one of the rooster's peck wounds caught the woman right over a large varicose vein in her leg and caused a "significant hemorrhage."
"Death was therefore due to exsanguination from bleeding varicose veins following an attack by a rooster," physicians wrote in the journal.
"This case demonstrates that even relatively small domestic animals may be able to inflict lethal injuries in individuals if there are specific vascular vulnerabilities present."
Varicose veins are swollen, twisted veins which are usually found in the legs and can be easily seen under your skin.
Those veins typically note a problem with a person's blood flow to the heart, which then pools back into the veins and causes them to swell up full of blood.
The report noted that the 76-year-old also suffered from other medical issues including hypertension and diabetes.
It's not clear if that contributed to the rooster's fatal pecking attack.