tracylynn_

A squirrel waltzed into an open classroom at Evergreen Elementary School and scurried up a woman's leg in an attack that ended with an 11-year-old girl and two moms in the hospital this morning.

The three are expected to recover from bites to their hands, fingers and arms, Evergreen Elementary School District spokesman Will Ector said.

The door to a portable classroom was open to warm weather as the school day started, Principal Kathy Shepard said . Inside the room, first-graders were excitedly awaiting a field trip to see the musical mystery ""Cam Jansen'' at the Flint Center in Cupertino.

Sometime around 8:43 a.m., witnesses called San Jose police to report that a squirrel had bitten three people, Sgt. Nick Muyo said.

The squirrel, Ector said, walked into the portable classroom, which is located in a wooded section at the back of the school's property. Skittering across the room, the squirrel ran up the pant leg of a parent-chaperon for the field trip.

The woman struggled with the squirrel, Ector said, but it had sunk its claws into her leg. Another parent-chaperon jumped in to help the woman dislodge the squirrel.

The animal bit the first woman on her leg. It bit the second mom on the finger and arm, Ector said. Then, it hustled out of the classroom.

But before it ran back into the wild, it attacked an 11-year-old student passing by.

""He jumped up on her,'' Ector said. ""She had to fight him off.''

The girl suffered bite wounds on her arm and finger, Muyo said.

The three were taken to the nurse's office and later sent to the hospital.

It is highly unusual for squirrels to carry rabies, Santa Clara County Vector Control spokeswoman Kriss Costa said. But people bitten by squirrels often undergo a series of shots to ward off the disease.

Testing the squirrel in this case will be difficult, officials said.

""The whereabouts of the squirrel are unknown,'' Muyo said. By the time animal control workers arrived at the school, the squirrel was gone, San Jose Animal Care Center spokeswoman Julie St. Gregory said.

""He seems to have high-tailed it out of there,'' she said.

The school, Shepard said, doesn't have a history of problem squirrels, unlike Cuesta Park in Mountain View where three people including a 4-year-old boy were bitten by the fuzzy creatures.

""For us,'' Shepard said, ""it's so unusual.''

An animal control contractor for the district told Ector that he hadn't heard of a similar attack in his decade or more with the district.

Mountain View Community Services dealt with the squirrel problem at Cuesta Park by trapping and euthanizing squirrels early this year, Director David Muela said. Officials identified more than half a dozen so-called aggressive squirrels, spoiled on human food until they lost their natural fear of people.

Since the trapping ended in February, Muela said he's received no complaints of squirrel attacks, but signs discouraging feeding the animals remain at the park.

Evergreen Elementary plans to start a similar trapping program immediately, Ector said. The first-grade classroom where the initial attack occurred will also be moved away from the only trees on campus that may be home to the aggressive squirrel.

Because older students are involved in state testing today, the doors to nearby classrooms were closed and other students are unaware of the attack, Shepard said. The district will send a letter home with children tonight, Ector said.

There is good news for the first-graders in the classroom where the attack occurred their field trip scheduled for today went on as planned.

The rare condition is known clinically as internal decapitation, and it left her with no control over her head.

Her injuries left Malloy with nerve damage that made her eyes cross, and she has difficulty swallowing. She was not paralyzed. She told her story to Denver station KMGH-TV.

Dr. Gary Ghiselli, an orthopedic spine surgeon at the Denver Spine Center, said he and his colleagues had never seen such an injury in someone still living.

"I've seen it once before," Ghiselli said, "and, unfortunately, the patient didn't make it."

Even after the crash, physicians in Nebraska, where Malloy lives, told relatives they should prepare to say their goodbyes.

Ghiselli said a will to survive kept Malloy, 30, alive long enough for surgeons to insert screws in her head and neck and attach a halo to minimize movement — no easy task.

"My skull slipped off my neck about five times," Malloy said. "Every time they tried to screw this to my head, I would slip."

Doctors eventually stabilized her head and strengthened her neck. The halo has since been removed.

"It's a miracle that she was able to survive from the actual accident," Ghiselli said. "It's a miracle that she's made the progress that she's made."

Tracy Pham, life is not that bad. Now go study.