A mother and her two young children moved into an apartment just a few days before tragedy hit. Her 4-month-old infant was sound asleep when a raccoon mauled the baby and dragged the infant to the floor.
Ashley Roberts got up to take her 6-year-old son to the bathroom, leaving her bedroom where her 4-month-old daughter was fast asleep. She said she heard a sound coming from the upstairs and when she rounded the stairs to go back up to the bedroom to see what that noise was, she saw a raccoon scurrying down the staircase.
When she got to her bedroom her little baby girl, Jourini Black, was on the bedroom floor. The raccoon had attacked the baby girl and dragged her across the room. The baby was bleeding and crying when Ashley finally reached her and she described her daughter as having a face that was “red.” The mother was devasted at what she saw.
The infant was rushed to the hospital where she received 65 stitches to her face, according to Fox News . The baby’s injuries were severe enough that it may take up to a year for the infant to make a recovery from the vicious attack.
According to local CBS News , the infant had to undergo surgery after the raccoon attack in her North Philadelphia home. The apartment house is located on the 2100 block of North 22nd Street.
This raccoon attack occurred just a few days after the mother moved herself and her two children into the Philidelphia apartment. She had no idea that there were raccoons within the walls of their new home, that is until the day of the attack when she saw a raccoon and alerted the landlord.
The neighbors had also alerted the landlord that they were having problems with raccoons getting in. Fox News reports that tenants had previously complained to the landlord about the raccoon infestation.
Doctors told the family it will take at least a year for the baby to fully recover, according to reports https://t.co/eBDVEa2mrw
— New York Post (@nypost) December 22, 2017
According to the city’s Licenses and Inspections Department, it appeared that the landlord did not hold a rental license in the city of Philadelphia. After witnessing what happened to her infant daughter, Rodgers said the building needs to be shut down and “everybody needs to leave.”
Samuel Black, who is the father of the infant, told reporters that the animal should not have gotten into the house especially with minors living in the building.
“It is the landlord’s responsibility,” he said. Rodgers intends to seek legal action over her daughter’s attack.
