Heart-pounding footage shows the moment a quick-thinking Israeli man springed into action to rescue his two-year-old daughter before she was dragged by a coyote outside her Los Angeles home. The clip, taken on Friday by cameras stationed outside the Eliyahuo family’s Woodland Hills home, shows the toddler being dragged across the family’s front yard by the animal before being shooed away. It begins with the child’s father – and eventual rescuer – Ariel Eliyahuo parking his car in front of the house before heading out with his young daughter.
The girl then begins to wander a few meters away from her father on a path in front of the house while Ariel continues to unload the car. The dutiful father told reporters that he just picked up his daughter from her preschool and retrieved her toys. In the few seconds that Ariel is concentrating on grabbing the tot’s toy, the opportunistic animal makes his move – and dashes quickly into the frame, toward his unsuspecting daughter. The coyote then lunges at the child and shoves it onto the sidewalk before latching onto it with its teeth. The animal bites the toddler several times before dragging it across the sidewalk.
At this point, as the girl screamed and wailed in pain, Ariel saw the alarming scene and quickly rushed to her rescue. After rescuing his daughter from the animal’s grasp – and hurling a bottle of water at her – the coyote quickly backs away and eventually flees. The girl was then taken to the emergency room after sustaining non-life-threatening injuries, the family said – including a deep laceration to her leg.
“She has a lot of scratches on her left leg and one of them is really deep,” the girl’s mother, Shira Eliyahuo, told local outlet KTLA shortly after the attack. “The coyote just dragged her along,” the mother added, revealing the toddler also suffered facial bruises after falling on the concrete. “I saw her bloodied pants. So I took them off and exposed all the scratches on her legs.’
At first, the family said the father thought the girl fell to the ground and didn’t notice the coyotes, which are common in LA but rarely attack humans due to their small stature. “He didn’t see the coyote, he thought she fell,” Shira said. ‘So he ran over and then he saw the coyote.’ Ariel – an Israeli national who is heard swearing in Hebrew in the dramatic footage – recalled the horror he felt upon seeing his daughter in the claws of the beast.
“I heard the screams and the crying and I thought she had fallen. Then I saw the coyote over there.” The next few seconds would be blurry, but luckily he saw the coyote get shooed away. However, this wasn’t the last time the family caught a glimpse of the beast, who proved to be frighteningly persistent in his stalking of the family – when news crews arrived later in the day, he reappeared at the house.
The Eliyahuoes (pictured) — who are both of Middle Eastern origin but live full-time in the affluent neighborhood near Santa Monica — told reporters they’re not only sick of the coyotes in their neighborhood, but their constant howling.
A search for the coyote being conducted by the California Wildlife Information Department is now underway, officials said, hoping to match the animal to DNA left with the toddler’s bite. The couple’s daughter, meanwhile, has been vaccinated against rabies and is currently recovering at home. Patrick Foy, captain of the force’s law enforcement branch, warned residents over the weekend that coyotes “are a huge problem in this area” and that his team “has received reports that they’re also stalking pets.”
Due to their small size, coyotes are rarely known to attack fully grown adults, with children and animals being their most common victims. Most attacks affect children under the age of five – although they are still extremely rare. The Eliyahuoes, meanwhile, told KTLA that they want to prevent an attack like this from affecting another child in the future, and they hope the city will step in by capturing the coyotes and removing them from their community. Coyote activity in the area is particularly rampant, with seven coyote attacks this year alone — all involving pets or children.
However, attacks almost never prove fatal – although in this case, given the toddler’s size and age, Ariel’s actions likely saved his daughter’s life. Officials warn if coyotes are a problem in your area, build a higher fence around your property and not feed the animals so they don’t associate people with food.
Only two coyote attacks in history have proven fatal to humans — including one in LA in 1981 that eerily mirrored the ordeal of the Eliyahuoes, and the only fatal attack in the United States. Also in Los Angeles, a 3-year-old girl was attacked and killed by a coyote while playing unsupervised in her front yard. Another arrived in Canada in 2009 and saw 19-year-old singer-songwriter Taylor Mitchell killed.
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