{"id":637951,"date":"2026-03-07T05:23:19","date_gmt":"2026-03-07T05:23:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/637951\/"},"modified":"2026-03-07T05:23:19","modified_gmt":"2026-03-07T05:23:19","slug":"most-frightening-experience-of-my-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/637951\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Most frightening experience of my life’"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Hays County woman is recovering after being attacked by a rabid fox, in an incident that comes as the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) reported a spike in rabies in the county earlier this year<\/a>.<\/p>\n

About a week ago, Linda Rogers said she was outside her home near Wimberley when a fox lunged at her unexpectedly.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I knew is that this thing was at my feet coming after me,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cIt was the most frightening experience of my life, and I have had some harrowing experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

The encounter quickly escalated. Rogers said she tried to fight the animal off but stumbled and fell, causing her to fracture her arm. Later, she discovered a bite mark on her leg and quickly began treatment.<\/p>\n

“I already knew from the behavior of the fox that there was no doubt in my mind that it wasn’t rabid,\u201d Rogers said. \u201cThey don’t act that way. I mean, it was growling and carrying on, and it was mad.”<\/p>\n

Local officials later confirmed that the animal tested positive for Rabies.<\/p>\n

According to the DSHS, eight animals have tested positive for rabies in Hays County so far this year. County Judge Ruben Becerra said four of those cases have involved foxes.<\/p>\n

Chris Van Deusen, a spokesperson for DSHS, told KVUE that the region has seen an increase in terrestrial rabies, which are cases involving land mammals rather than bats, over the past few years.<\/p>\n

Van Deusen emphasized that while any mammal can carry rabies, the disease is treatable when addressed quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, really, the bad thing is that once a person begins to show signs of rabies, it is almost always fatal,\u201d Van Deusen said.<\/p>\n

To help curb the spread, Hays County said they will continue to offer quarterly low\u2011cost rabies vaccination clinics.<\/p>\n

The next clinic will be held on Saturday, March 14 from 8:00 a.m. until 10:30 a.m. at Centro Esperanza located at 2045 Spruce St. in San Marcos, with more planned for June 6 and Aug. 15. Pet owners are encouraged to stop by and get their animals vaccinated to help reduce the risk of transmission.<\/p>\n

Community members started a fundraiser <\/a>to help Rogers with expenses during this time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Hays County woman is recovering after being attacked by a rabid fox, in an incident that comes…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":637952,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[11],"tags":[153387,157588,271721,161106,210,199757,69547,3649,253399,271720,67,132,68,271722],"class_list":["post-637951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-chris-van-deusen","tag-county-judge","tag-dshs","tag-hays-county","tag-health","tag-linda-rogers","tag-rabid-fox","tag-rabies","tag-rabies-vaccination","tag-texas-department-of-state-health-services","tag-united-states","tag-unitedstates","tag-us","tag-van-deusen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116186225393314700","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=637951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/637951\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/637952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=637951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=637951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=637951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}