Rabid fox attacks Guilford County man

GUILFORD COUNTY, N.C. (WGHP) — A Summerfield man was attacked by a rabid fox in his front yard, marking the 15th confirmed rabies case in Guilford County.

Charles McClintock saw a fox come out from under his deck early Saturday morning while he was checking on his barbecue. He didn’t think much of the fox since it was still dark outside.

Later Saturday morning, his peaceful backyard getaway changed in an instant when he got home from picking up breakfast.

“I came around the front of the truck to go up the steps, the fox came out from under the car and it got my leg,” McClintock said. “I was able to make it over to this area, and I was kicking the fox against the post and the side of the house back and forth.”

After a few minutes, his wife heard him yelling and ran outside to their back deck. She tried throwing her Yeti cup and a clay pot at the fox, but it latched on.

“It just wasn’t letting go until I was able to kind of break its jaw against the deck, and it knocked out,” McClintock said.

The fox left a gaping hole in his pants. He used his own weapon to shoot the fox to be sure it wouldn’t attack him again. The Guilford County Health Department confirmed the fox was positive for rabies on Tuesday.

“There were no teeth marks … or anything on my skin, but I thought my foot was broken from kicking the deck so many times,” McClintock said.

Doctors at an Urgent Care facility found two scratches on his leg and sent him to the emergency room to start rabies shots just in case.

“I was shaken up. It was something that was just completely out of the normal,” McClintock said.

He has two more rounds of rabies shots left. He’s thankful his wife decided not to go to the park with their dog on that Saturday morning because she could have been the target of the fox’s attack.

McClintock worries it might not be his last run-in with a crazed animal after he saw a sickly-looking raccoon in his backyard later the same afternoon he was attacked.

“It leads me to think it’s probably not the last case, and there’s more animals around that do carry the rabies virus,” McClintock said.

He says he is planning to install trail cameras in his yard to keep a closer eye on other visitors.

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