After dinner Friday night, Doreen Latargia Entrup, 53, decided to go for a walk near her home on Grenadier Drive in Mahwah.

She didn't know a coyote down the street was on the hunt for some food of its own.

“It was still light outside; the weather was nice. I just wanted to get some fresh air,” Entrup said in a phone interview on Sunday.

But as she walked past her neighbor’s home toward Airmont Avenue, she noticed three cars were stopped near the intersection. Then she saw two fawns near the woods across the street.

“Suddenly an adult deer goes flying across the avenue and I see a coyote stops chasing it,” she said. "It just became very still."

The coyote was standing about 300 feet away when she saw it turned its gaze toward her, Entrup said.

She turned around and began walking — not running, because she was in flip-flops — toward the home of a neighbor whose garage door was open, she said.

As she got to the foot of the driveway, she turned around to see if the coyote had run away.

“Instead I see it’s right behind me," Entrup said.

It was about as big as a medium-sized dog — "smaller than a golden retriever" — with tan-colored fur and was standing there ready to pounce.

"It takes its first bite on my upper thigh and butt,” Entrup said.

She began screaming for help as she called her neighbor, Debra, on her cellphone and made her way toward the garage, she said.

Entrup’s neighbor realized the screams were right outside her home and called the police.

In the meantime, the coyote was on its hind legs and biting at Entrup's upper arm and back.

“His face was by my shoulder,” she said.

“It wasn’t stopping. As I’m walking up her driveway, he’s just not stopping at all," Entrup said. "He wouldn’t stop biting."

Near the garage door she found a bucket of sporting gear, pulled out a kid's-sized baseball bat and started swinging, she said.

“I had the cellphone in one hand and the bat in the other,” she said. “That’s when she opened the door from her kitchen to the garage and I ran right into the kitchen.”

The coyote gave up, but before going away it dropped feces on the walkway, Entrup said. Hunters in the neighborhood spotted deer hair in the feces and suspect that the coyote has been hunting all week, she said.

Entrup was left with 13 punctures along her backside and arms. She said the worst of it was on her rear, making it difficult to sit. She was hospitalized Friday night and discharged Saturday morning.

Since then, traps were set up in the neighborhood to catch the coyote, but authorities said it had not been caught as of Sunday.

Neighbors posted to social media that they'd spotted the coyote in recent days. Entrup said she thinks she saw it Thursday night during a walk on her block, but it was too dark to tell.

Mahwah police warned residents not to turn their back if they encounter a coyote but instead "make yourself as big and loud as possible" and call police. "Make as much noise as possible and throw small sticks to scare them away," Mahwah police tweeted.

Entrup, a resident of Mahwah for 19 years and mother of three, said coyote and fox sightings are common in her neighborhood.

“But I’ve never seen one as ferocious and with such aggressive behavior as this one,” Entrup said.

Email: carrera@northjersey.com

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