Kangaroo strikes back against hunters' car, breaks man's jaw

Authored by abc.net.au and submitted by stankmanly
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Kangaroo strikes back against hunters' car, breaks man's jaw

A man's jaw has been shattered after he collided with a kangaroo while hunting in Western Australia's wheatbelt.

Joshua Hayden was hunting with his brother in a paddock near Kellerberrin on Tuesday night when the pair spotted three kangaroos.

The 19-year-old said one of the kangaroos disappeared and, as he stuck his body out of the window to have a shot at the other two, the kangaroo launched itself at the moving car.

"It actually collided with the side of the car and smashed the front window," he said.

"Then it bounced back onto me and headbutted me straight in the jaw."

Mr Hayden said he was unconscious for about 30 seconds before he came around.

"I woke up and my brother was trying to tell me what happened," he said.

"I said 'No, you hit me' and he said 'No, the kangaroo did'."

His brother took him to Kellerberrin Memorial Hospital, where he was told to go straight to the Northam Emergency Department.

From there he was referred to Royal Perth Hospital, where he was told he would have to wait 10 days to have surgery because his face was too swollen to operate.

Mr Hayden and his brother regularly hunt kangaroos for food, but he said normally they did not fight back.

"Out of all the times we have been out bush I have never heard of this before," he said.

"The kangaroos are going crazy these days. As soon as they see a car they hop right up to it and give it right back."

The incident has shades of similarity with a collision in 2015, where a cyclist captured on video the moment she was knocked to the ground by a kangaroo while riding in Canberra.

Bronwyn Calver suffered abrasions when she fell, and received treatment from intensive care paramedics at the scene but escaped serious injury.

Topics: animal-attacks, animals, emergency-incidents, accidents, regional, geraldton-6530, northam-6401, kellerberrin-6410, perth-6000

Paradigm88 on February 18th, 2018 at 16:31 UTC »

I feel like Australia's flag should just have a kangaroo with a broken beer bottle in one hand, and it's flipping you off with the other.

Your_daily_fix on February 18th, 2018 at 16:11 UTC »

"I woke up and my brother was trying to tell me what happened," he said."I said 'No, you hit me' and he said 'No, the kangaroo did'."

Brother breaks brothers jaw and then blames kangaroo.

GypsyPunk on February 18th, 2018 at 15:27 UTC »

Between this and cows breaking arms I think the animal uprising has finally come.