The mother of a 7-year-old boy being attacked by a juvenile mountain lion came to his rescue in what she called “a miracle.”
The incident occurred Friday afternoon in the backyard of the Bromley family home in Lake Cowichan, according to Global News. Zach was outside playing. His mother Chelsea was inside.
“There’s a fence, which is kind of just a wire mesh fence, and he was looking through it and he thought this was just a dog approaching him, didn’t think anything of it, and then this thing charged him,” Kevin Bromley, the father, told CTV News Vancouver. “Before Zach could get, you know, more than four or five yards, this thing was on him.”
The cougar went through the mesh fence and clamped down on the boy’s arm. Hearing a struggle, Chelsea ran outside, saw what was happening and sprung into action.
“She jumped on top of this thing, but it just wouldn’t let go of Zack’s forearm, so she then had to pry this cougar’s jaw open,” Bromley explained to Global News.
“She told me she couldn’t do it for two or three seconds, but then she screamed ‘help’ and it just let go and ran off. And there was blood everywhere.”
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Emergency service arrived minutes later and transported the boy to a hospital where he received stitches on the arm and on his skull behind his ear.
Kevin told CTV News the thick hoodie Zach was wearing prevented the damage from being even worse.
“It put a real good gash in the crown of his head—about 4 centimeters [1.6 inches] is what the doctor said—but the rest of it was mostly just superficial because of the clothing,” Kevin told CTV News.
It was believed two young mountain lions got separated from the mother, but only one of them was involved in the attack. The British Columbia Conservation Service tracked down both juvenile mountain lions and killed them. Both appeared thin and believed to be starving.
“She’s beside herself,” Kevin told Global News of his wife. “If it had been a bigger cougar, it would have been over.”
“She just feels that it was a miracle,” Kevin told CTV News.
Kevin told Global News that he began crying when he saw his son, adding, “I think today it’s starting to sink in for him what happened. We’re just trying to focus on him and make sure this doesn’t impact him mentally or traumatically. We took him out for a big dinner last night, and that made him happy.”
Photo courtesy of Wikipedia Commons.
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