CHESTER TOWNSHIP — Joe Oriente didn't expect that when he went deer hunting with his brother-in-law Sunday he'd end up in a fight for his life with a rabid coyote.

"I knew I had to kill him," Oriente said of the coyote. "He wasn't going to stop. He would have gone after my hind legs if I tried to run — that's what they do to deer. You can't turn your back on an animal like that."

Township police received reports Saturday of a coyote that had attacked two cyclists and a jogger on Patriots Path Trail in the Black River Wildlife Management Area, but they and Department of Environmental Protection officials were unable to locate the animal.

The next day, Oriente, 68, of Cliffside Park went hunting for deer in the township with his brother-in-law completely unaware of the coyote attacks. He'd previously given up using compound and recurve bows in favor of a crossbow because he'd had three spine surgeries and a shoulder injury.

It was about 11 a.m. when he left his tree stand to walk over to his brother-in-law's location when he heard rustling in the brush. At first, Oriente said, he thought it was a deer.

"Next thing I know, he pops out of the brush and bites me on the arm," Oriente said.

"I couldn't figure out what was going on until a split second before he bit me," he said. "No way anybody could have outrun this animal. He was fast. Really fast."

Oriente, who served two tours in the Vietnam War, said he was fortunate because his military training kicked in, so he began to defend himself with his crossbow, arrows and knife. Oriente also began yelling to try and scare the animal off, but, he said, the coyote was undaunted.

The coyote never made a sound during the entire encounter, Oriente said. It also wasn't foaming at the mouth.

The coyote, he said, kept running back into the brush before leaping and lunging at him. It was during these exchanges that the coyote managed to bite Oriente on the cheek and lip.

Oriente was able to use his crossbow to beat the animal. At one point, he tried to shoot it with the loaded crossbow while it was six inches away, but he'd left the safety on.

Knowing he'd never be able to reload it before the coyote attacked again, Oriente said he pulled arrows from his quiver and used them to stab the animal. Oriente said he managed to stab the coyote twice, but the arrows broke off inside the animal.

Oriente then managed to step on its head, pinning the animal to the ground.

"That's when I knocked him down and cut his throat," he said. "He was so mad. He was relentless."

The coyote kept trying to get up and attack so Oriente stabbed it several more times.

"Not bad for a (veteran) that's 70 percent disabled," he said.

In the aftermath of the attack, Oriente said, "There was blood on everything."

"The bite (to my face) went right to the bone," he said. "I had a piece of meat hanging off the side of my face. I used hand sanitizer (to clean the wounds) and band-aids."

Despite the bite on his right bicep, the bone-deep bite into his cheek, the five-minute life-or-death struggle with the animal and the multitude of prophylactic rabies shots afterward, Oriente is glad it was he the coyote ran into Sunday instead of an unarmed jogger or a child.

"I'm just glad it attacked me rather than a kid because I knew what to do," he said. "There's a school field only a few hundred yards away. They wouldn't have had a chance."

"I'm really happy I'm the last guy he met," he said.

Oriente said he believed killing the coyote was an act of mercy because of the madness the disease inflicted upon the animal.

State officials later confirmed via necropsy that the animal tested positive for rabies.

"The likelihood of another rabid coyote in the area is slim," DEP spokesman Larry Hajna said. This is the fifth confirmed rabid coyote in New Jersey since 1989, according to police.

Oriente said he was grateful to the Fish and Wildlife official Chuck Sliker along with law enforcement officers and the Chester ambulance crew for their quick response.

Besides Oriente, three other people encountered the coyote including Anthony Casale of Roxbury.

Casale told NJ Advance Media he was about four miles into his five-mile bike ride on Patriots Path Trail Saturday when he saw what appeared to be a German shepherd loose.

Casale said he wasn't initially concerned because he was used to seeing dogs on the trail. Many times, Casale said, he's seen people tie up their dogs and retrieve them when they're done with their ride or run.

This time, however, the animal wasn't a dog but a rabid coyote that lunged at Casale.

"I thought he was just going to run by me," Casale said. "He stopped and looked at me in the eye and then lurched at me and then it was on. He showed his teeth and tried to bite my face off."

The coyote tried to jump over his bike, but Casale said he was able to use it as a shield and as a weapon against the animal.

Casale said the coyote lunged at him eight or nine times over the course of a two- to three-minute fight, but he was able to use the bike to hit the coyote over the head. At one point, the coyote lunged at Casale, and onto his bike, so he was holding both the animal and the bike off the ground.

"If I didn't have my bike the story would be a lot different," he said.

Casale said he was never actually bit or scratched by the coyote, but he was exposed to the saliva during the fight so he had to get prophylactic treatment from the emergency room at Morristown Medical Center. The attack had mangled his bike and front tire — which was punctured by one of the coyote's bites, he said.

As of Friday, Chester Township Police Lt. Thomas Williver said police were now asking for the public's help in reaching out to a fifth person who may have exposed to the coyote in the Black River Wildlife Management Area last weekend. Williver said he was reaching out to the media in order to convince the person come forward.

"This person has not come forward yet and we are requesting the use of your media resources to urge this person or any other person that may have come in contact with the rabid coyote to contact the Chester Township police at 908-879-5514," he said.

Williver declined to comment on the person's identity, but he did ask NJ Advance Media for assistance reaching out to a man who said he'd been attacked by a coyote last weekend.

John Zakis said in an email earlier this week that he and his cousin encountered the animal on Friday night in the Black River area — prior to the incidents reported to police.

"It came at us three different times and twice I saw it just feet from biting my ankles," Zakis said. "The third time we were ready for it and watched it from at least 100 yards away just walk straight to us! At about 10 feet away from being at our feet, we hit it in the face with a shot of bear mace. It backed off and back end went down in a submissive posture with tail between the legs and then it ran off. If I hadn't noticed it coming at me at the last minute, twice, I would have been the one bit! This is crazy!"

Zakis said the coyote wasn't foaming at the mouth or acting "aggressive" but seemed to be "testing the waters" as if he had been fed by humans.

Zakis has not yet returned messages regarding whether he and his cousin received treatment or notified authorities. Williver and Hajna previously said they weren't aware of any reports of an aggressive coyote before Saturday.

Anyone that may have come in contact with the coyote can contact the Chester Township Police Department at 908-879-5514.

More information on rabies is available on the state's Department of Health's website.

Justin Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinZarembaNJ. Find NJ.com on Facebook.

