AN 80-YEAR-OLD woman called the police after she was attacked by seagulls and had to go to hospital.

Barbara Cox was too scared to go out for two days after the drama.

She had gone to hang out the washing out in her garden when two seagulls swooped down and one gripped on to her leg and gouged at it.

Mrs Cox said: “I went out to hang my washing out and I thought ‘what’s that at the bottom of the garden?’ and saw it was a dead chick.

“The next thing I knew two seagulls swooped down on me and one attached itself to my leg.

“I was terrified. I’m 80 years old.

“It came down and grabbed me on the leg with its claws. It pecked me and caused me to bleed.”

She managed to break free from the birds and made it back inside her house in Manor Gardens, Brighton.

She said: “I was too scared to go outside of my house for two days but I had to go to A&E in the end because my leg was hurting.”

Mrs Cox was given a tetanus jab but said she was returning to Brighton’s Royal Sussex County Hospital because her leg became “lumpy” where the gull had gouged at her.

“It could have had my eye out,” she added.

Now Mrs Cox wants the city council to send out information telling residents in her area not to encourage gulls by feeding them.

She said she would hand deliver them herself if the council printed them.

But Brighton and Hove City Council said it would not be releasing addition information on gulls.

Councillor Gill Mitchell said: “We receive many enquiries about seagulls and have advice on our website.

“Our pest control team can give advice and a free quote on how to pest proof properties to stop gulls from nesting.”

Sussex Police said seagulls were not a police matter.