Rockland County Woman Says Raccoon Broke Into Home, Bit Her Leg
BLAUVELT, N.Y. (CBSNewYork) -- A search was under way Thursday afternoon for a masked bandit in Rockland County who attacked a woman in her own house.
As CBS 2's Sonia Rincon reported, the suspect was described as small, furry and gray, with a striped tail.
And not only did the member of the species Procyon lotor break into a house on Wilson Road in Blavuelt, but he also bit owner Pam Poppe. And he crashed Poppe's 11-year-old daughter's party, showing up uninvited in the basement as Poppe grabbed a box of party supplies.
She said she turned around to find the raccoon staring at her.
Poppe dropped the box, and said that was when the raccoon lunged at her and bit her leg. The animal was between her and the stairs.
"So my first reaction was to get out, which I went out through this door here, and then ran to the front door, and it must have left through that door also," she said.
Poppe's husband, Ed, was just getting home.
"So when I came downstairs, Pam says, 'I called 911', and I'm like, '911? It's just a raccoon. I'll get it out,'" Ed Poppe said. "And she says, 'It bit me!'"
Ed and Pam Poppe believe the raccoon broke in by boring a hole in the latticework under their deck and scooting right below it into the basement.
They believe he squeezed through an opening that used to be in the basement ceiling. It has since been closed up, but so was the hole under the deck right after the incident -- and that hole has been broken open again while a peanut butter sandwich left a nearby trap has disappeared.
Pam Poppe was getting rabies treatment just in case. Their home is just a few miles from where a coyote that did turn out to have rabies bit a woman.
Mary Lou Gardner and her shih tzu mix Jasmine were out for a walk on Tuesday when the coyote attacked. Gardner put herself in between her dog and the wild animal and took the brunt of the attack.
"It bit me on the arm and then it went after her again and so I started kicking it, the coyote," Gardner said on Tuesday.
Gardner happened to be treated at the same hospital as Pam Poppe.
"She took their last supply of rabies medication, so I got a vaccine, but I need to get back," Pam Poppe said.
As for the masked bandit, he was last seen peering into a window on the Poppes' on the front porch before taking off. As of late Thursday, he remained on the loose.
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