Dramatic images have emerged showing the moment a mother saved her daughter from a vicious raccoon attack.
Schoolgirl Rylee MacNamara had been standing outside her family home in Connecticut, US, early on Friday when the raccoon came out of and attacked her.
Rylee had been waiting for her parents to take her to school at the time, the UK’s Mirror reported.
The raccoon attacked her leg, sinking its claws into her foot as she tried to shake it off.
“I was going out to get on the bus and a raccoon was there and tried to attack me,” Rylee told local news site WFSB.
“It was wrapping its arms around my leg. It really hurt.”
Her mother Kelsey ran outside after hearing her daughter’s screams, as the animal continued to attack her leg.
She grabbed her daughter and pushed her inside the house before she could be attacked again.
The raccoon then went for Kelsey, who screamed and launched it away by the head.
It landed in the backyard, stunned, then ran away after hearing a dog bark.
Both the mother and daughter went to hospital and received rabies shots.
Animal control officers went looking for the animal but couldn’t find it.