A member of the hiking group Fjalla-Freyjur had to seek medical assistance last weekend after being bitten by a fox in the slopes of Mt. Húsafell, southeast of Hafnarfjördur in Iceland’s capital region. Foxes usually never attack humans.
“We were of course very taken aback,” Svanhildur Sveinsdóttir, who witnessed the incident, told Fréttabladid. She said six women had been seated in the slope having coffee when they suddenly noticed an animal speeding towards them. They agree it must have been a fox cub.
“We screamed because we were terrified,” Sveinsdóttir said. The fox ran straight towards one of the women and then immediately ran back the same way. The woman then noticed that her leg was bleeding.
The woman went to the emergency room where she was given a tetanus shot.
“This story is incredible. I’ve never heard of a case like this before,” said Dr. Páll Hersteinsson, professor in mammalogy, and the leading fox expert in Iceland.
“I cannot explain it,” Hersteinsson said, yet pointing out that foxes have poor eyesight and sense their environment differently from humans, so perhaps the fox did not see the women until it literally hit them and became scared.
