Fox Mauls Baby Girls in Their Beds

LONDON June 7, 2010 -- Two 9-month-old girls are in serious condition today after a fox attacked them in their London home.

Twin sisters Lola and Isabella Koupparis were mauled when a fox crept through an open door in their home at 10 p.m. Saturday while the parents, Nick and Pauline Koupparis, watched TV. Their brother Max, 4, who was also sleeping upstairs, was unharmed.

The two girls were taken to The Royal London Hospital where they were in "serious but stable" condition, said the police. Both girls sustained arm injuries. It is reported that one also has facial injuries.

"[Lola] looks dreadful. One side of her face is beautiful. The other side is like something from a horror movie," Pauline Koupparis told the BBC.

The Koupparis released a statement today calling the attack "a living nightmare."

"It's something I would never have expected to happen - let alone to us and my beautiful girls," she girls' mother told reporters.

After the attack, environmental health officers installed traps in the rear courtyard of the Koupparis' residence. A neighbor reported noise coming from a trap Sunday night. That noise proved to be a fox.

"A vet was called to establish if it was safe to move the animal," a police spokesperson told ABC News. "It was determined it was not, and the fox was humanely killed by the pest controller at approximately 12:15 a.m. on Monday."

Police said they will leave the traps in place for the time being.

London Fox Attack a 'Freakish' Incident

The London Wildlife Trust estimates that 10,000 foxes roam London. But experts say attacks on humans are incredibly rare.

Only two other incidents have been recorded. Sue Eastwood reported that her 14-week-old boy suffered injuries to the head in 2002 when a fox crept into their Dartford house. In 2004, Margaret O'Shaughnessy was bit in the leg when she went into her garden to put out a saucer for her cat in Edinburgh.

John Bryant, a pest control consultant who specializes in urban foxes, called the attack of the Koupparis twins "freakish" on the BBC's Radio 4.

"[Foxes] will walk into houses, walk round, mess on the bathroom floor and sometimes sleep on the bed if people are not around," Byrant said.

Bryant said a fox would typically only attack if it felt threatened.

"It just doesn't make any sense to me," he said.