Witnessing your child in pain or in peril can ignite something inside of a parent. And when that switch gets flipped, there's nothing that a mom or dad won't do to protect their young.
A New Hampshire dad has been hailed a hero for killing a rabid coyote with his bare hands after it attacked his two-year-old son, CNN reported.
"We had no idea it was there," O'Reilly told NBC 10. "The coyote came up behind us, grabbed our youngest child and dragged him to the ground."
Jumping into action, O'Reilly's wife lunged at the animal and grabbed her two-year-old son back, but the coyote wasn't ready to back down just yet. That's when O'Reilly himself stepped in.
"I was able to get its head into the snow and get my hand around its snout, so it could no longer bite me," O'Reilly told WCVB. "And then, from there, I was able to suffocate it by using my body weight and scissor-locking it until basically expiring.'
He later told WMUR, "In the middle of the moment, you're not really thinking or ... recording a whole lot. You're really just instinct."
The coyote later tested positive for rabies, a virus which can be transmitted from infected animals to humans through a bite.
In a Facebook post about the incident, Kensington NH Police reported that everyone who came into contact with the coyote, including several other locals who came across the animal in town that same day, was given a rabies shot.
h/t: CNN, NBC 10, WCVB, WMUR, Facebook | Kensington NH Police, Global News
