BOSTON -- A 76-year-old Worcester woman is recovering in the hospital with serious injuries after being attacked by a fox while she worked in her vegetable garden Tuesday.

Wenyu Chen was gardening at her Mount Hope Terrace apartment when she was surprised by the fox, but luckily was rescued by two men who were working at a pest control job nearby.

Leo Dupont and Robert Ford sprang into action when they heard Chen's cries for help.

"As soon as we looked over, there's a woman with a fox hanging off her arm, just draped like this, screaming," Dupont said.

One hurried to call police and the other ran to help her.

"I ran over and I kicked the thing as hard as I could and it went against that wall and I grabbed that woman by her bloody hands and I said, 'Come with me, come with me,' and I dragged her over to this car," Ford said.

Neighbors watched the scene in horror from a second-floor apartment.

"She had blood all over her arm, blood all on her leg. She was just bloody, man. She was out of it," A.G. Harrison said.

As he tried to help Chen and get her to the safety of a nearby car, Ford said, the fox turned on him.

"I hear him yelling to her, 'Go in the house, go in the house.' It wasn't but two seconds after that, the thing came after Bobby," Dupont said.

The vicious animal did not back down.

"He backed me up onto the roof (of the car) and then he actually jumped up here and he got up. So I kicked him in his head and he flung off and he got even madder and he came back and he jumped up again," Ford said.

It clamped on to Ford's shin as he was trapped on the top of the car, but officers eventually arrived at the scene and fired three shots at the fox, which was later euthanized by animal control officers.

"That thing was so aggressive and it was out to kill. There's no doubt about it," Dupont said.

The animal was being sent to a state lab for rabies testing.