Rooster pecked woman to death in 'rare' attack, report says

On the heels of a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) about backyard chickens spreading illness to people in 49 states comes a harrowing tale about a woman who was killed by a rooster that delivered a lethal strike to a varicose vein in her leg.

According to the report, which was published in the journal Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology, the 76-year-old had been collecting eggs at her home in Australia when the aggressive rooster attacked her lower-left leg. The woman collapsed, with an autopsy later revealing two small lacerations on her leg, including one on a varicose vein,LiveScience reported. 

Her cause of death was listed as exsanguination, which is a severe loss of blood, caused by the rooster’s aggressive pecking. The attack is considered “rare” by the report’s authors, with one telling LiveScience that it “demonstrates that even relatively small domestic animals may be able to inflict lethal injuries in individuals if there are specific vascular vulnerabilities present.”

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