Briarcliff Family Scared by Night With Rabid Fox

Susan Johnson jumped at the sight of a rabbit Tuesday. It is understandable if the Briarcliff homeowner still feels skittish after a rabid fox bit three people, then left foam and blood all over her guest bedroom while trapped there overnight.

"It was like too incredible to believe," Johnson said. "It seems funny now, but we were all frightened. It was a terrifying experience."

Johnson had just had an evening meeting in her house at 40 Austin Place with about 30 people involved in the Briarcliff Manor Education Foundation on June 8 when the fox appeared in her neighborhood. Everyone had left except for Julie Plank, a neighbor who lives across the street from Johnson.

Plank left the house about 20 minutes after the meeting, and moments later, Johnson and her husband, Eric Johnson, heard a loud shriek and screaming. Eric Johnson thought Plank was being attacked by a man and ran outside. Then he too began screaming.

"It was dark outside and we couldn't even tell what was happening, but the animal left and went running towards myself and my mother-in-law," Johnson said. "It latched onto my mother-in-law's pant leg and she shook it off and it ran in our house."

Johnson and her mother-in-law followed the fox into the house and closed the door of a guest bedroom on the ground floor after the fox ran inside.

"My neighbor was wearing white pants and there was blood all over her pants because she got bit," Johnson said.

Johnson took Plank to Phelps Hospital's emergency room while her husband and two sons, 10 and 12, stayed in the house. One son had picked up a bat after hearing screams but when he saw the fox run by, he dropped the bat, leapt up the stairs and jumped into bed with his brother.

While Johnson and Plank were at the hospital, police and an animal control officer from Ossining set a cage trap in the guest bedroom that held the fox.

In the emergency room, Johnson and Plank met two other victims of the fox – an 18-year-old who had been bitten in the leg and a 20-year-old who had fallen down and broken his wrist while running away from the fox.

"I didn't get home until three in the morning and it was hard to sleep because I would ascribe powers to this animal. I was envisioning that it would open the door and come upstairs to attack us," Johnson said.

The next morning, police and the animal control officer came back with a bigger crate and some poisoned food. They opened the bedroom door once to put in the poison, then decided that they should give the animal a little more poison.

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