Ed Mills was standing on his deck in Malabar on Wednesday evening when he heard screaming and gunshots. Minutes later he heard ambulance sirens.

“It was scary,” Mills said. “My thought was it was either domestic or somebody had shot a dog in their yard or a raccoon.”

Turns out , a 54-year-old woman who lived nearby on Hall Road had been attacked by a coyote and was transported to Palm Bay Hospital. A family member shot the animal dead.

Brevard County Sheriff’s Deputies received a call at about 2:50 p.m. that a resident had spotted a coyote in the 2000 block of Duncil Lane, but the resident said the wild animal disappeared into an area of forest, according to Maj. Vic Desantis.

At about 5:30 p.m., a woman on Hall Road called to say her mother-in-law had been bitten by a coyote and that she shot the dog.

“On the way home from work, I glanced over at their house and saw this ugly little dog thing out front,” said Mills, who lives nearby on Flashy Lane. “I thought, man that’s a mangy looking dog, that one.”

Mills said the residents of the house where the woman was bitten moved in recently and he doesn’t know them well. He didn’t see the attack, but he did see the dog’s carcass.

Laurie Smith, a neighbor who also lives on Flashy Lane, said she’s not worried about the coyotes in the area. She’s home during the day, and her three horses are kept inside at night.

“I feel bad for her,” Smith said of the injured woman. “I guess she got sliced up pretty bad.”

Brevard County Animal Control and Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also responded to the scene to deal with the coyote carcass. Desantis said the carcass likely will be tested for disease.

Desantis urged Brevard residents to be careful around wild animals.

“Wildlife is just that, it’s wild and best left alone if at all possible,” he said. “The same holds true for alligators and other critters.

“If you do get bitten, your first thought should be of getting medical attention,” he said. “If at all possible, try to have that animal contained so it can be tested later to see if it has communicable diseases.”