Earth Changes
"I reached in to get my two dogs out. Then the raccoon looks at me very angry and starts attacking me," she said.
Despite being overcome with fear, Helene was able to fight back.
"He was stuck on biting my legs. He was on my left leg and I was kicking him as hard as I could with my right leg."
She screamed and tried to get into her apartment, but the raccoon followed and kept charging at Helene and her dogs.
"I was afraid for my own life."

A dead neonate gray whale washed ashore in Santa Monica State Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2014.
Los Angeles County Fire Department Lifeguards said the neonate gray whale was spotted around 2 p.m. near Lifeguard Tower 12, located at 1200 Ocean Walk Front.
The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles was on its way to pick up the 1,200-pound mammal.
The cause of death was not immediately available.
Oelofse said it's "nothing unusual" and that "quite a lot of this" happens this time of the year. News24 reports that Oelofse said their whale stranding team was "pretty proficient" and hoped to get the carcass off the beach on Wednesday. The removal depended on the tides and weather conditions.
"We have asked that the public give us space. We will try and put chains and straps around it and lift it onto a flatbed truck. It is big machinery and if those chains snap, it can be very dangerous."
The carcass will be moved to a landfill site for disposal.

Attacker: Animal Services described the dog as a male American Bulldog mix that weighs 95 pounds and is 5-years-old. The dog remains with Animal Services while an investigation is pending
Nyjah Espinosa, who would have celebrated her birthday on Christmas, was visiting at her father's Miami-Dade home when his dog attacked her on Sunday.
Espinosa's family was too distraught to speak with NBC 6 Tuesday afternoon.
NBC 6 exclusively obtained a photo of the dog authorities indicated was involved in the attack. Animal Services described the dog as a male American Bulldog mix that is 5 years old and weighs 95 pounds.
Officials say at least two people were killed.
Rescue workers say they found one body and were trying to recover the other one.
A truck caught in the flow of mud was pushed off the road. Parts of a highway were also buried neaby
Such incidents are not uncommon in rural Peru, where landslides and avalanches kill dozens of people and destroy hundreds of homes every year.
Source: Reuters
They appear to be the same species of fish — thread herring — found washed up along other beaches along the Space Coast last week. Countless thread herring washed up dead Thursday along beaches in Cape Canaveral and Cocoa Beach.
"There was nothing out here yesterday," said Ron Van Kempen, a seasonal resident from Minnesota, fishing just south of Patrick AFB Monday. He cast his fishing line among floating herring corpses, which also speckled the beach where he stood.
The cause of the fish kill remains unknown.
Rain and winds of up to 70mph could continue to batter northern England in the run up to Christmas, it is feared.
Storm Eva could bring further misery to Cumbria, where some areas are dealing with the aftermath of flooding for the third time in a month.
Appleby, Glenridding, Keswick and Kendal were all hit after rivers burst their banks on Tuesday.
An Environment Agency spokesman said: "We are monitoring the situation closely."
The spokesman added: "There is currently the possibility for further unsettled weather during the festive period which could lead to some disruption in the north of England.
"We will issue further flood alerts and warnings if required."
Roy Ashley, whose garage business and home in Appleby have been damaged once again, said the flooding had destroyed lives.
One man was taken to hospital and was confirmed to be one of the 76 missing after the disaster in Shenzhen, the Guangdong province fire department said on its official microblog. The other was badly injured and was still being removed from the debris.
The man already extracted has been named as 19-year-old Tian Zeming from the southern city of Chongqing. He was rescued around 70 hours after the landslide.
Photos and video footage from the scene showed dozens of armed police, firefighters and men in hard hats gathered around a deep hole dug into the soil where he had been buried.

A whale kicks its tail after it got stranded in the shallow water near West Beach on Tuesday, Dec. 22, 2015, in Galveston.
The whale died at about 12:30 p.m., according to a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, about five hours after it was spotted. Volunteers had been planning to euthanize the ailing marine mammal once the tide moved it closer to shore.
Officials plan to observe the whale overnight before performing a necropsy on Wednesday.
The whale likely drifted onto the beach in front of the Terramar Beach subdivision because it was ill, said Heidi Whitehead, operations coordinator for the nonprofit Texas Marine Mammal Stranding Network.













Comment: See also: Resident warns of raccoon attacks in Vancouver; 3 in the region this year