Dede Phillips must now get rounds of painful and expensive treatment to prevent rabies.
A Georgia grandmother who was attacked by a rabid bobcat wasn't going down without a fight.
While her 5-year-old granddaughter slept inside, Dede Phillips told Inside Edition affiliate WGCL that the animal attacked her with barely any warning.
The shocking scene unfolded while Phillips was outside putting a bumper sticker on her truck that read: "Women who behave rarely make history."
As the bobcat lunged, Phillips remembers thinking, "I wasn't dying today."
So she fought back. The bobcat managed to badly bruise her body, inflict some seriously deep wounds and even break fingers on both her hands but when she got her hands around the animal's neck, Phillips didn't let go.
"I strangled it to death," Phillips told the station.
While Phillips could breathe easy with the animal lifeless and her granddaughter safe, she wasn't out of the woods yet.
The bobcat would soon test positive for rabies, meaning Phillips must undergo expensive treatments to prevent her from developing the deadly disease.
To make sure that happens, Phillips' family has set up a fundraiser, hoping folks will have a heart and help offset the cost of the grandmother's painful shots.
And give they have. As of this writing, nearly $30,000 has been donated to the cause.
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