A man fights a rabid fox with a hammer

LEXINGTON, N.C. – A North Carolina man had to resort to a domestic tool to protect himself from an enraged fox who attacked him.

WFMY reported that Ronald Jowers was sitting on the porch of his mother's house in Lexington, North Carolina on Tuesday when he heard a rustle in the bushes nearby.

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"I did not see anything and then the next thing I know, I feel something knocking … my side," Jowers told WFMY. "And he was a fox."

Jowers said the animal weighed about 25 to 30 pounds and would not let go.

"He was good for life," said Jowers.

WGHP reported that Jowers had shouted for her sister to get something she could fight with. She grabbed a hammer and hit the fox a few times while Jowers held the animal to the ground. Jowers said that they had fought with the animal until it died.

According to the Dispatch, officials from the Davidson County Health Department confirmed Thursday that the fox had tested positive for rabies. Jowers was bitten in the stomach and legs, WGHP reported. Officials from the Lexington Police Department said that no skin had been broken, but he was scratched and his clothes bitten, according to The Dispatch.

WFMY reported that after Jowers and his sister had repulsed the animal, they called paramedics and went to a hospital where he had received 17 vaccines against rabies.

"I had my second shootout today," he told the WFMY on Friday. "I just got back from the hospital, I only got one, but any needle is painful."

Jowers is scheduled to return for a third and fourth set of shots later in the month. His sister was not bitten during the incident.

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