by Staff writer
A woman was left with a punctured lung after trying to save her husband from a savage kangaroo attack.
Linda Smith, 64, and her family were feeding the Queensland animals, who have been suffering from hunger due to drought, when all hell broke loose.
A huge 6ft grey kangaroo started attacking her husband Jim, with Mrs Smith and their two sons using a broom and shovel to fight it off.
During her struggle with the vicious animal, she suffered a collapsed lung, broken ribs and cuts to her arms and legs.
Mrs Smith, a wildlife carer who is now recovering in hospital , said her family regularly feed around 30 wallabies and kangaroos with grain and chaff.
She told the Brisbane Times : “This one kangaroo came in and I thought it was Golly Gosh, one of the kangaroos we have raised.
“He was a huge grey, would have been at least 6ft.”
She said her husband had only just started feeding the creature in Millmerran, south-west of Toowoomba (a city in the Darling Downs region of southern Queensland, Australia), when it launched the attack.
“Jim was on the ground and the kangaroo just kept at him,” she said.
Linda Smith, 64, and her husband Jim were feeding kangaroos when the attack happened
“I went outside to try and help him and took a broom and a piece of bread but he knocked the broom out of my hand then attacked me.
“I got him off Jim and Jim got up and I managed to grab a piece of wood to defend myself with that.
“Then my son came out to try and help me and hit him over the head with a shovel.”
The kangaroo hopped away from the scene before emergency services arrived.
Mrs Smith is now due to undergo surgery at Toowoomba Base Hospital.
Her husband, also in his 60s is being treated for lacerations.
