Arizona mom used her flip-flop to fight off a coyote attacking her 4-year-old daughter

An Arizona mom out in her neighborhood flying a kite with her 4-year-old daughter a couple of Sundays ago found herself in a fight with a coyote that refused to back down.

The coyote had started nipping at the little girl, according to mom Brittany Cardinal, and before she knew it, mom was swinging her flip-flop at it.

Stock image of woman and girl flying a kite. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

"We had gone outside because it was windy. And my daughter’s like, 'oh, let's fly a kite,'" Cardinal said, reports AZ Family.

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A normal activity on a windy Sunday afternoon. That was until mom heard her daughter scream and saw the coyote going after the girl.

"I picked her up and then I started yelling at it, thinking, of course, it’s going to go away, and then it didn't," Cardinal said. "So then I took off my flip-flop, and I was trying to scare it with that by like trying to hit it."

Stock image of coyote wandering around residential area. (Getty Images)

As the mom tried to fight off the coyote and get it to leave them alone, she fell. The coyote then bit her on the face.

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"I always hear people say like, 'you don’t feel the pain when like trauma like that happens,' and I mean, I really didn’t feel any pain," Cardinal said of the bite. "I just felt like the pressure of it."

Mom and daughter were eventually able to get away from the feisty coyote and make it back home. Mom had lacerations and puncture wounds on her face from the bite.

THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA - AUGUST 23: A coyote looks on as it walks on a trail near a residential neighborhood at sunrise on August 23, 2026 in Thousand Oaks, California. (Photo by Kevin Carter/Getty Images) (Getty Images)

Arizona Game and Fish officials have removed several coyotes from the area following the incident and are testing them for rabies. They said that Cardinal did everything you're supposed to do during a coyote attack.

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I guess everything except for getting bitten on the face. That I highly doubt is in the protocol. But everything else she did correctly.

Alex Flickinger, public affairs community liaison for Arizona Game and Fish, said, "You fight back, you yell at the animal, be loud with it, throw rocks, whatever you have to do to get that animal to just run off."