4-month-old attacked by raccoon in Philadelphia home

PHILADELPHIA — Parents of a 4-month-old girl say the child was attacked by a raccoon inside their Philadelphia home.

Ashley Rodgers says the attack happened Wednesday night in the family’s first-floor apartment.

Rodgers says she had taken her 6-year-old son to the bathroom while the baby was asleep on a bed. She returned to find her screaming daughter on the floor with blood all over her face. Rodgers says the raccoon had dragged her across the room.

“We heard a sound upstairs, and we see a raccoon run down the steps,” Rodgers told KYW-TV . “When I finally got to her, she was laying on the floor so it had dragged her off the bed, across the room, and she was bleeding and crying, and her whole face was red.”

The baby was taken to a hospital, where she received more than 60 stitches and a rabies shot. The child is recovering, and doctors say her eye sight wasn’t affected.

“It’s just ridiculous,” Samuel Black, the girl’s father, told KYW-TV . “My daughter could have lost her life.”

The Animal Care and Control Team of Philadelphia said an officer responded to the home, but couldn’t find the raccoon. Officers have since assessed the building and set traps. Officials say no raccoons have been caught yet.

Rodgers had just moved into the apartment this week. The family doesn’t plan to return to the unit.

“A raccoon dragging an innocent baby off a bed onto the floor,” the child’s uncle, Kenny McDuffy, told WPVI-TV . “What was he going to do? Eat her? Kill her?”