Woman Eaten by Her Pigs After She Collapses While Feeding Them

A woman in Russia is believed to have died after she being eaten alive by her own pigs.

The 56-year-old farmer suffered fatal injuries after collapsing during an epileptic fit while feeding her pigs.

Russian state media reported the hungry pigs bit into her face, ears and shoulders as she lay on the floor. Her identity has not been made public.

The woman died of loss of blood at the farm, located in the Malopurginsky area of Udmurtia, part of Russia's Volga Federal District in the west of the country.

According to the Moscow-based website Newstes the woman was found by her husband on February 1, a full day after it is believed she died. He reportedly felt unwell and had gone to bed early on the day she was eaten by the pigs.

Authorities in Russia have launched an investigation into the episode, local law enforcement said in a press release.

The phenomenon of live humans being eaten by pigs is not unheard of. In 2015 a Romanian farmer died of blood loss after being bitten by the animals. His family told Britain's Daily Star newspaper he may have suffered a heart attack while feeding the animals or he simply may have slipped before they moved in.

In 2014 a Chinese toddler was killed after he was partially eaten by pigs. The two-year-old crawled into a pig pen while playing in his back garden in China's Jiangsu Province. The U.K.-based Daily Mail reported an aggressive sow mauled him to death while attempting to protect her piglets.

Pig attacks have also occurred closer to home. In 2012, The Associated Press reported Terry Vance Garner, 69, was eaten by his own pigs at his farm on the Oregon coast.

Most of Garner's remains were consumed by the pigs, with only his dentures and pieces of his body remaining in the pig pen several hours after he left to feed them. Several of the pigs kept by Garner weighed more than 700lb.

The extent of damage done to the farmer's remains meant a pathologist was unable to identify the cause or manner of his death. "For all we know, it was a horrific accident, but it's so doggone weird that we have to look at all possibilities," district attorney, Paul Frasier, said at the time.

Garner had been told his brother that one of his pigs, a sow, had bitten him a year before when he accidentally stepped on a piglet. "He said he was going to kill it, but when I asked him about it later, he said he had changed his mind," Michael Garner said.