KEY POINTS

  • A father choked a coyote to death after attacking his two-year-old son during a family walk
  • The animal was also reported to have chased a vehicle 
  • The same coyote also attacked a 62-year-old woman and her dogs

A father literally took matters into his own hands as he strangled a coyote to death after it attacked one of his children while walking in Exeter.

Ian O'Riley was enjoying a family walk together with his wife in three kids when the coyote came out of nowhere and attacked his youngest child, said NBC Boston.

The animal was able to grab his son to the ground but fortunately, his wife was able to separate the two, he added.

coyote
Representational image. JEAN-CHRISTOPHE VERHAEGEN/AFP/Getty Images

The two-year-old was unharmed, but O'Riley was bitten several times when wrestled with the coyote and strangled it to death.

“I was able to kick it in the jaw. It went down. I just gripped its snout, kept it in the snow and then was eventually able to put my hand over its nose and in the process just gripped its windpipe and sat there for a long time,” he said.

Still, the coyote managed to resist, but O'Riley held his ground.

“I straddled it and scissor locked it, then continued to just hold it down,” he added.

He described the coyote to be aggressive and didn't heed despite kicking it and shooing it away.

However, O'Riley and his family weren't the first victims of the coyote.

The animal was also reported to have chased a car early Monday in Hampton Falls.

Kensington Police Chief Scott Cain told NBC Boston that the car was trying to get the coyote out of the road when it suddenly attacked the vehicle before running off into the woods.

Police then received another call that the same coyote was able to enter the enclosed porch of Pat Lee by sliding its glass door.

The coyote then attacked her and her dogs, said NBC News.

Contractors who were working at a nearby house heard Lee's screams and rushed in to help her fend off the vicious canine.

“I was running behind the dogs to get them in, and just as I was here, literally, the coyote bit me. In the butt,” the 62-year-old Lee told NBC Boston.

Cain believed that the coyote “was sick and the pack kicked it out of the pack.”

Both O'Riley and Lee were given rabies shots, while New Hampshire Fish and Game collected the coyote and tested it for rabies.