A HUNT supporter has told of her horror after a fox mauled her arm.

Deborah Adams, 46, was left needing plastic surgery and skin grafts after the incident last week.

Mrs Adams, who took part in the Four Burrow Hunt in St Columb on New Year's Day, was left "shaking and bleeding".

The housewife and mother of four was driving her Peugeot 206 from her home at Fraddon to Mawgan Porth when the incident happened at about 10am.

She said: "I drove out of Gluvian Farm and saw the fox in the middle of a single track road, which is very bendy.

"I flashed my lights and the fox didn't move, which I thought was strange. So I edged closer and it still didn't move. I beeped the horn, which I was sure would make the fox run off, but it still stayed there.

"I got out of my car and approached the fox to make sure it was still alive, which it was. But then it leapt at my outstretched arm as I was shooing it away."

The fox clamped onto Mrs Adams's left arm, just below her elbow, and ripped off a chunk of flesh about the width of a two-pence coin and about an inch deep.

Doctors told her she was to return to the hospital every day to have the wound assessed and her dressings changed.

But, two days later, after the wound had not improved, she was referred to the Royal Cornwall Hospital at Truro to see a plastic surgeon and underwent four hours of surgery on Thursday.

She said: "Doctors took away more flesh, which had got infected, and then said I would require a skin graft after I returned to see specialists on Saturday.

"The graft will cover the wound. But it will take months to heal over. The infection has to clear up first."

John Bryant, a pest control specialist in foxes, said the attack on Mrs Adams seemed out of character for the animals.

"If a wild animal doesn't behave in the way you would expect it to when you flash your lights, beep your horn, or even approach it – don't get near to it. The attack is a freak occurrence."