A 5-year-old boy grabbed a rabid fox by the neck and pinned it to the ground during a family cookout, protecting six other children before his stepfather could step in.Without being there I can't criticize the neighbor for apparently trying to fire "scare shots." It could easily have been a case of a mad fox tearing into the step-father and the boy at close quarters, and he didn't want to risk hitting them.
"I wanted to protect my little brother," said Rayshun McDowell, who battled the animal in the front yard of his home Sunday in Kingstown, a town about 50 miles west of Charlotte.
The fox bit Rayshun in the leg, but the 61-pound-boy held the animal down. Health officials later identified the fox as rabid.
"I looked out the window and Rayshun had the fox by the neck and was pushing it into the ground," said his mother, Shinda Linder. "I couldn't believe what I was seeing."
Rayshun's stepfather, Ryan Thompson, pulled the boy off the animal and kicked it. A neighbor fired a handgun three times but the fox continued to advance.
Thompson, wearing a cast because of a broken leg, said he used a stick and his crutch to beat the fox to death. Rayshun, meanwhile, asked only for a Band-Aid and didn't complain of any pain. "Rayshun was really calm and wasn't upset," his mother said. "I couldn't believe he would do something like that. He was so brave, and I was a wreck."
Way to go, kid.
