(CNN) A 76-year-old woman died in Australia recently after a few pecks from a rooster resulted in a catastrophic vein injury.

According to pathologists from the University of Adelaide and the Netherlands Forensic Institute, a domestic rooster attacked the woman on her rural property, pecking at her left leg and "causing significant hemorrhage with collapse and death."

"Death was therefore due to exsanguination from bleeding varicose veins following an attack by a rooster," the researchers wrote. Exsanguination refers to draining of the blood, or a significant loss of blood.

The freak accident has less to do with killer fowl and more to do with a tragic confluence of preexisting conditions. The pathologists found the woman had been treated for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, diabetes and varicose veins in the past.

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