"It flew at me from several different directions," Katherine Vanbuskirk recalled of the violent encounter

A woman in Massachusetts was left scarred and terrified after being attacked by a raccoon.

Katherine Vanbuskirk had a violent encounter with the animal on Saturday, July 26, around 1 a.m. local time while she was letting her dogs outside, according to Fox affiliate WXIX.

She claimed the raccoon suddenly jumped at her and scratched her face and arms. The mammal also reportedly gnawed at her hands and legs.

"It flew at me from several different directions," Vanbuskirk told the outlet.

When the woman finally escaped, she closed her deck door and called 911. She recalled screaming "Help me, help me."

Vanbuskirk was taken to a nearby hospital, where she was given rabies shots and antibiotics, according to the report. "This is horrible. This is [a] nightmare. I kept saying it to myself because I couldn’t find any other words. I just encountered a monster,” she said of the incident.

To make matters worse, Vanbuskirk said she was unable to find her dog before being taken to the hospital. Fortunately, she told WXIX that the canine was found later in the morning.

The woman said in an interview with NBC affiliate WBTS that she had recently undergone shoulder surgery and fought off the raccoon with only her right arm.

VanBuskirk suspects her compost bin in her yard may have attracted the animal, so now she has moved it "outside the gates, far away."

Regardless of the incident, the woman does not have a vendetta against raccoons. "I just want other people to be careful," she told WBTS. "And you know, I’m gonna never blame the raccoon."

Raccoons typically avoid humans when they are nearby, according to Critter Control. However, the organization stated that they can adapt to human environments.

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People are encouraged to avoid raccoons in the wild as they are known to be defensive fighters and carry diseases, such as rabies, roundworm and leptospirosis.