Woman killed by wild hogs in early morning attack
A woman bled to death after being attacked by wild hogs when she got out of her car in rural Texas.
Christine Rollins, 59, was attacked in the darkness of early Sunday morning in the town of Anahuac, 40 miles (65km) east of Houston.
Police said Ms Rollins had arrived at the house of an 84-year-old woman she cared for, but when she didn’t enter at the usual time the woman went outside and found her lying in the yard.
There were different sizes of bites on her body, suggesting an attack by more than one hog, said Chambers County Sheriff Brian Hawthorne.
When police arrived they found her already dead, with a coroner later saying she had bled to death.
Sheriff Hawthorne called it a “very rare incident”.
A 2013 study found only four fatal hog attacks in the country’s history and three were after the animals were being hunted.
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Around three million of the estimated six million wild hogs in the US are in Texas.
Experts say the animals can weigh more than 90kg (14 stone) and are very powerful.
Ms Rollins’ son-in-law, Tony Sandles Jr, said she was “amazing” and like family to the people she cared for – a job she had done for about 40 years.
He said his mother-in-law was “very, very cautious” and would never had left her car if she knew the hogs were nearby.
