A one-year-old toddler was moderately injured after a jackal snatched him out of his family’s camping tent and bit him. Fellow campers at the Ein Gviv campsite in the Negev called Magen David Adom when they heard the boy’s parents screaming and saw them chasing the jackal.
MDA teams treated the young boy for bite wounds and evacuated him to Soroka University Medical Center in Be’er Sheva in moderate condition. There, the toddler was treated for shortness of breath and received stitches for bite marks on his face and neck.
“We arrived at the Ramon Crater (Mitzpeh Ramon) campsite and saw a man in his thirties holding a baby who is about a year old with bite marks on his neck and face and signs of having been grabbed by the jaw of an animal, apparently a jackal,” said MDA paramedic Doral Arzoan. “We were told that a jackal pulled the baby from the tent and dragged him,” said Arzoan about the moments of horror. “People who saw what happened, chased the jackal who released him.”
“The baby suffered from deep penetrating injuries and bruises,” Arzoan continued. “He was fully conscious and in pain, so we gave him medication for the pain and monitored his vitals while urgently evacuating him to the hospital in moderate and stable condition.”
The toddler was snatched by a jackal in the middle of the night while his father briefly left the family’s tent to use the bathroom and accidentally left door open. When the mother realized her toddler was missing, she began screaming. Her husband turned on his phone’s flashlight and began chasing the jackal and screaming until the animal dropped the child and ran off.
“I have been a professional snake catcher for years and know animals,” remarked Arzoan. “I have never encountered such an unbelievable event which happily ended in a great miracle.”
