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Authorities have released more details about a bear attack outside of a Northern Westchester residence that left a 7-year-old child hospitalized.
The attack, which happened on Tuesday, Aug. 22 just after 11:15 a.m., occurred outside a North Castle home at 75 Hickory Kingdom Rd., where the boy had been playing in the woods before running into the bear, according to a report by NBC New York.
Luckily, the boy's parents were able to scare the animal away and bandage their son before first responders arrived at the scene, according to a New York Times report.
The boy was later sent to a local hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
North Castle Police officers who responded to the home fatally shot the bear after determining that it posed a threat to first responders. Department Chief Peter Simonsen explained that this was because the animal would not leave the area.
"Our concern was that (the bear) did not retreat, so at one point, he did advance," Simonsen said, according to NBC New York. "When you have that many human beings, an animal would normally retreat, and it did not."
The male bear's remains were later taken by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to the Westchester Department of Health in order to test them for rabies, police said.
Click on these links to read the full reports from NBC New York and the New York Times.
This continues to be a developing story. Check back to Daily Voice for updates.
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