Woman has surgery after kangaroo attack

An Australian woman has had emergency surgery after she was attacked by a kangaroo.

Debbie Urquhart, 54, was jogging near her home in Templestowe, 16 kilometers northwest of Melbourne, when the 2-meter tall marsupial attacked her.

Urquhart, a personal trainer, said the kangaroo repeatedly kicked her on the right side of her body, ripped her clothes and “threw me around”.

Urquhart said she played dead in order to stop the attack and was able to escape when the kangaroo ran away, running 500 meters home screaming and covered in blood.

Her husband covered her in towels and rushed her to the emergency department of the nearby Austin Hospital.

“He ripped me to pieces,” Urquhart told News Limited on Tuesday.

“He just kept on kicking into me and I was trying to crawl away.

“He left me for a bit and I thought he was going to come back and kill me.”

Though she avoided any broken bones or the need for plastic surgery, Urquhart received a total of 35 stitches in her right arm and buttocks.

Urquhart said she would never forget the attack.

“Every time I close my eyes it’s pretty vivid, it’s horrible,” she said.

“If he had got to my stomach, I could have been killed.”

Despite the attack, the personal trainer said she would get back to work on Tuesday afternoon.

“I walked again yesterday afternoon as soon as I got back home from hospital,” she said.

However, she said she would not run near the track where the attack happened again and that residents of the area should be wary of kangaroo attacks.