Australian politician attacked by kangaroo in Canberra

An Australian politician received a roo’d shock when he was attacked by a kangaroo while on a morning run in the country’s capital of Canberra.

Shane Rattenbury, a member in the Australian Capital Territory government, was left with scratches on one leg and bruises on the other after his run-in with the bounding marsupial.

"I'm not sure who got the bigger shock, me or the kangaroo," Rattenbury said.

"He was minding his own business eating some grass, I was minding my own business running” through the inner-northern suburb of Ainslie.

"Unfortunately the kangaroo jumped up, as they do when they're a bit startled, and took a defensive pose and unfortunately I came out of it second best with some decent cuts down the back of my leg."

A Good Samaritan drove the injured Rattenbury to a nearby hospital where a nurse cleaned his wounds and gave him a tetanus shot. A few hours later he arrived for work at parliament house.

He later joked on Twitter that he had been robbed by a kangaroo.

The Australian ABC reported, tongue in cheek, that a search for the kangaroo had “turned up several thousand possible culprits.”

There are an estimated 60 million kangaroos in Australia – nearly three times the human population – according to the Wildlife Preservation Society of Australia.

Attacks on humans are not common – but they do happen. 

In 2012, a Queensland man was lucky to survive after a kangaroo kicked him in the stomach while he was jogging in a paddock. He punched the roo in the face and ran for his life.