Feral hogs attack, kill woman

Christine Rollins steered her white sedan toward the rural Texas home and parked it just a few steps away from the front door. She stepped out of the car, locked it and prepared to head into the house, where she worked as a caretaker for an older couple.

Instead, according to the authorities who are now investigating her death, she was attacked by a herd of feral hogs before she could make the short walk.

Hog attacks are rare, but the scene was so harrowing that investigators could find no other explanation for Rollins’ death early Sunday in Anahuac, about 50 miles east of Houston. It was just the fifth deadly feral hog attack documented in the United States in nearly two centuries, according to one study.

“It was like nothing we’d ever seen,” Sheriff Brian Hawthorne of Chambers County said Tuesday, the day after a medical examiner ruled the cause of death as “exsanguination due to feral hog assault,” using a medical term for severe blood loss.

One of the homeowners went to check on why Rollins, 59, had not come inside at her usual time and discovered her body on a small patch of grass.

Rollins was one of three caregivers who worked 12- to 14-hour shifts looking after the husband, 84, and wife, 79, who suffer from memory loss. She was known for her compassion, the sheriff said, relaying a story of when Rollins drove over from another town to feed the couple when the wife got sick.

Rollins’ son-in-law told a local television station that the family had been preparing for her 60th birthday, which falls on Christmas.

Hawthorne said it was clear from her injuries that Rollins had fought back against the hogs. He said it was impossible to know exactly how many had attacked her, but that there had been more than one, based on the varying sizes of her bite wounds.

There are millions of wild hogs in Texas, though they are rarely violent toward people. Texans mostly encounter them when the animals have uprooted a flower bed or damaged crops. Unlike domesticated pigs, feral hogs can become aggressive if they feel trapped, or if a female hog is defending her offspring.