This is the terrifying moment an Arizona toddler is mauled by a coyote as his unsuspecting mom unloads her car – before the beast escapes and attacks another child in a nearby playground.
Authorities are searching for the blood-thirsty fiend after it terrorized Scottsdale on Wednesday.
Kelly Pirozzi, the mom of the coyote’s first victim, told ABC News she was standing on her driveway when the animal savaged her 21-month-old son, biting down on his arm before she was able to tear him away.
‘It happened so quickly,’ she said, revealing her son thankfully only suffered minor bite marks in the attack.
Terrifying footage caught the lead up to the attack, where the 21-month-old toddler unwittingly found himself as the target of a bloodthirsty coyote
The wild dog was seen pouncing on the child after he wandered into the shadows
The 21-month-old victim, center, was thankfully left relatively unscathed and suffered only minor bite marks
Pirozzi, a podiatric surgery specialist in the area, was able to capture footage of the frightening near-miss on her home security camera.
While turning her back to unload her car, Perozzi’s 21-month-old son wandered towards their $2.1million Scottsdale home.
But a coyote locked onto him from inside the bushes, and it is seen slowly moving towards the child as he wanders into the shadows.
After pouncing towards him and clamping down on his arm, Pirozzi said the animal eventually released him from its grip after he yelled out.
The video later caught the coyote eerily trawling the area as it returned to the scene.
Kelly Pirozzi, right, a podiatric surgery specialist in the Scottsdale area,
But following the attack, another toddler in a playground near an elementary school was also set upon by a coyote just half a mile away.
Officials believe the same coyote was behind both attacks, with the second victim suffering several ‘scrape marks on his stomach’, according to Darren Julian, and urban wildlife specialist with Arizona Game and Fish.
With the strikes happening in quick succession, Julian warned parents in the area to be ‘extra vigilant’ while the menace is still on the loose.
Arizona’s Game and Fish Department said in a statement that this ‘coyote shows little fear of people and may have been illegally fed in the past.’
The body added that it is patrolling the area with help from Scottsdale police.
However, despite officials so-far failing to locate the wild dog, the wildlife specialist insisted that coyote attacks are rare, with the latest incidences the first in the Phoenix area since 2017.
Source: | This article originally belongs to Dailymail.co.uk