Savage squirrel terrorizes Queens community with ‘cage match’ attacks
A sadistic squirrel is waging a bloody assault against one Queens neighborhood, leaving some wounded people scared to go outside.
“The squirrel didn’t care, it just wanted something — it wanted blood,” masked Rego Park resident Micheline Frederick, 56, told The Post on Wednesday. “For a few days afterwards I would come out with a shovel, just in case, looking around.”
The squirrel survivor also told ABC 7 she has good reason to remain rattled by the rogue rodent: “Next thing I know it’s an MMA cage match and I’m losing. It just basically runs up my leg and I’m like, ‘OK squirrel, hello — what are you doing?'”
The bushy-tailed beast “either bit me or scratched me on my neck,” Frederick said of the invasion that left her hands bloody and bruised on Dec. 21.
Since she had at least eight bites and her pinky finger was “pretty chewed up,” physicians at a nearby urgent care center sent Frederick to the emergency room for rabies shots.
Afterward, she warned her neighbor, Licia Wang, about the looming threat.
Her message, however, was not sufficient: Despite being on the lookout, Wang too was brutalized by the animal.
“I tried to shake it off but I can’t, you know — because squirrels have claws, cling onto your winter jacket. There’s no way you can shake it off,” Wang told ABC 7 of her own recent run-in with the fluffy madman, which may be the same one that attacked Frederick.
Three other people — at least — have reported recent encounters with the blood-thirsty vermin near 65th Drive near Fitchett Street. It’s unclear if all the incidents were committed by the same single terror, or if a pack of squirrels is at work, but either way, residents now live in fear of being attacked.
“[I’m] worried for the children. That’s what most people are concerned about — it’s the kids,” said Frederick.
“When we leave the house, we have to carry mom’s homemade pepper spray to make sure, if It comes at us, then we spray it,” teen Anika Singh Sood, an eyewitness of the wild squirrel, told the local TV news crew, cracking up.
However, Anika’s mom, Vinata Singh, 45, told The Post she has identified the markings of multiple squirrels — one of which “lunged” at her face.
“I don’t know how many — but I would peg it at at least three,” said Vinata, wielding her DIY pepper spray and pointing to bite marks on a wooden chair on the family’s front porch. “The first time my husband was attacked, the reason he noticed was because [the squirrel] was gnawing on here aggressively.”
The concerned mom also said she heard a rumor that a neighborhood pet might have escaped. A rep for “one of the agencies” approached by residents told Vinata that the violence might be the result of a “pet store squirrel who doesn’t know how to hunt or forage for food, who may have followed another squirrel who might have been sick — and possibly got infected.” She stressed that it’s just a “theory” at this point.
Despite the community’s pleas for help, the city merely recommended they hire a licensed trapper, which they did. So far, the fur monster remains on the lam.
“The NYC Health Department received a complaint about an aggressive squirrel in Rego Park and advised the property owner to hire a New York State licensed trapper,” the city’s Department of Health said in a statement. “Squirrels and many other small rodents are rarely found to be infected with rabies. If New Yorkers believe they have observed an animal infected with rabies, they should report it to 311.”
Meanwhile, Frederick showed The Post her bandages and said with a laugh, “Yes, 2020 has been one heck of a year — but definitely wasn’t expecting to be attacked by a squirrel.”