A four-month-old child was attacked by a raccoon inside the family’s Philadelphia home earlier this week. Now, several days later, the attack has spurred a generous outpouring of donations to the family.
Journi Black, a girl, was mauled and dragged by a raccoon in an apartment after it got inside.
Journi’s uncle, Kenneth McDuffie, told Philly.com on Christmas Eve that the large number of donations will allow the family to get another home to prevent another raccoon-involved incident.
“It will be safe. It will be secure. It will be wildlife- and rodent-free, a place where they are comfortable and they are safe,” McDuffie
told Philly.com. “We can’t always predict what is going to happen in the future, but we want to make sure that [Rodgers] and her family are safe.”
Many people made donations
via GoFundMe after a page was set up for the family. More than $20,000 has been donated in the 3 days since it started.
“My daughter was laying on the bed sleeping and I went to take my son to the bathroom,” Ashley Rodgers, the mother, told
CBS Philly. “We heard a sound upstairs and we see a raccoon run down the steps.
“When I finally got to her, she was laying on the floor so it had dragged her off the bed, across the room, and she was bleeding and crying and her whole face was red,” the mother
said.
The child was rushed to a hospital, where she got 65 stitches to her face. The child’s recovery could take as long as a year, officials told CBS Philly.
The city’s Licenses and Inspections Department told the CBS affiliate that the landlord shouldn’t have a rental license. Tenants---including Rogers---also complained about a raccoon infestation.
“It needs to be shut down. Everybody needs to leave out of there,” Rodgers
said.
“It is his (the landlord’s) responsibility. There’s no reason an animal should have gotten into the house with minors,” Samuel Black, the girl’s dad, told the outlet.
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