Texas woman injured after being caught in a brawl between a hawk ... - Saltwire
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It's a bird! It's a plane! It's a … snake!? And now it's a bird, too!
That was the scenario that recently played out for a Texas woman who was mowing her lawn when a passing hawk dropped a snake on her, and then swooped down to retrieve its meal.
Peggy Jones, 64, was left with cuts and bruising after the snake wrapped itself around her arm and began striking her face. The bird then landed, talons out, and Jones was caught in the fracas.
"The snake was striking in my face, it struck my glasses a couple of times … I was slinging and slinging, he was striking and striking, and he just kept hanging on," Jones told CBS News .
Jones said the hawk struggled to untangle the snake from her arm and, at one point, pulled her arm skyward as it tried to take off with its dinner in tow.
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"It flung my arm up. The hawk was carrying my arm and the snake with it," she said.
Jones, who was mowing the back of her property while her husband tended to the front yard, began appealing to a higher power.
"I was screaming, 'Please Jesus, just help me,'" she tearfully told CBS.
Eventually, after about four swoops, the hawk was successful in retrieving the snake, but Jones was left bloodied and shaken. As she ran toward her husband, he had a hard time understanding what had just transpired.
Soon after, he drove her to a local hospital, where she was treated for puncture wounds, cuts and bruising, and given antibiotics. She wasn't able to sleep that night, as she was unsure if the unidentified snake was venomous, and stayed awake to monitor her wounds.
A few weeks after the ordeal, Jones said she's still struggling to sleep, and the attack remains fresh in her mind.
"I think the adrenalin took over, and there was one point before the hawk came that I thought, 'I can't get rid of this … I'm going to die right here,'" she said.
"I was screaming, 'Please Jesus, just help me.'"
— Peggy Jones
Snakes, birds, and small mammals are all fair game for hawks, and attacks on humans are not unheard of.
In a particularly notable incident, a red-tailed hawk spent a few seasons preying on golfers at the Village Greens Golf Course, in Woodridge, Ill.
During the spring of 2001, at least 30 people were attacked by the bird. While some suffered cuts and bruises, others lost personal items like hats and sunglasses. It's believed the hawk was on high alert due to the spring nesting season.
It was enough for Brandon Evans, the course's general manager, to post signs around the clubhouse and property warning of the possible avian attack. He told ABC that while some people were injured, most emerged from the encounters unscathed, though with one request.
"They're always asking for additional handicaps," he said.
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