8-year-old boy fights off rabid fox to keep little brother from being bitten

HALL COUNTY, Ga. — An 8-year-old Hall County boy says he was only thinking about his little brother’s safety as he fought off a rabid fox to protect him.

Banner Goss was outside of his grandparent’s house in Gainesville last month with his electric scooter when he says an aggressive fox was hiding before it scratched him.

“It scratches my leg,” he told Channel 2 Gwinnett County Bureau Chief Matt Johnson, “and I started running.”

The next thing Banner thought about was how his 3-year-old brother John was in the garage at their parents’ home next door and the fox was staring at him.

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“I didn’t want it to attack him because I didn’t want him to go through anything,” he said.

It was around 9:15 a.m. on July 12 when Banner made sure he was in between the fox and brother at the family’s home on Shady Lane Drive. The fox didn’t stop being aggressive, he said.

“It jumped on my arm and then it stared at my brother and that’s when I shook it off,” Goss said.

Somehow, the rising third grader remembers the fox getting right back up.

“That’s when I pinned it down kind of under the car so whenever he’d get up, he’d just bump his head,” he said.

At this point, Goss’ father came running out of the house because Banner started to yell for help. Goss’ dad killed the fox and alerted Hall County Animal Control. Within days, the family found out the fox was rabid.

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Rachel Goss, Banner’s mother, says she’s proud of her son, noting the two are often inseparable.

“It doesn’t surprise me because he always thinks about his little brother,” she said.

Still, she isn’t eager for this to happen again.

“We won’t take our safety for granted again and we will probably always have something on hand to protect ourselves if we’re outside,” Goss said.

Banner just finished his last round of rabies shots over the weekend and he says he’s thankful his little brother never had to go through them.

“I’m just happy my brother is safe,” he said.

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