A woman caring for an elderly couple was found dead outside their home in rural Texas early Sunday after she was attacked by wild hogs, according to officials.
The fatal attack is one of the few deaths to occur as an explosion in the population of feral hogs, an invasive species, causes widely reported destruction around the United States, and particularly in Texas.
The caregiver, 59-year-old Christine Marie Rollings, was scheduled to visit her clients in Anahuac at her regular time of 6 a.m., but when she never arrived, one of the homeowners went outside and discovered Rollings's body between her car and the front door, the Chambers County Sheriff's Office said in a statement, reports The Washington Post.
Officials were initially unsure of what killed Rollings, though investigators early on suspected an animal attack, Sheriff Brian Hawthorne said in a news conference Monday.
Medical Examiner Selly Rivers, in neighboring Jefferson County, later ruled the cause of death as "exsanguination due to feral hog assault," or that Rollings bled to death as a result of the attack.