Last Friday, Ryan Palludan, 11, was playing with his sister’s young children in his grandfather’s wooded backyard in Middletown, N.J., when he heard “something running.” The next thing he knew, a coyote had bolted from the woods and jumped on his nephew, Liam Sadler, age 20 months. 

 

Instinctively, thinking the animal was a dog, Ryan began beating and kicking the coyote while shouting for help. “I thought it was going to kill him,” Ryan said. “I didn’t even think about what I was doing.”

 

What he did worked. The coyote let go of Liam and headed back into the woods. Ryan’s father, Philip, came running into the backyard, where he saw the animal on the edge of the property and chased it away.

 

Liam was taken to the hospital, where he was treated for bites on his head and neck and received the first in a series of rabies shots as a precaution.  

 

During the attack, Ryan said, he was “really scared.” But that didn’t stop him from saving his nephew’s life.

 

“He is my hero,” said Neva Sadler of her brother.