A quick-thinking British woman saved her boyfriend's life as he was being mauled by a mother bear by telling him to 'punch it in the eye'.
Andi Bauer, 26, from Germany, was left badly injured after the bear pounced towards him and wrapped its jaws around his right leg, tossing him like a rag doll.
The incident unfolded when he and his girlfriend Lara Booth, 23, encountered a mother bear and her two cubs when they were trekking in the Carpathian Mountains in Romania last month.
Andi had to be airlifted to hospital where surgeons had to screw rods into his leg.
Lara, originally from Cambridge, said: "I was frozen with fear when we first saw the bears.
"I remembered you’re supposed to punch a bear in the eye, so I yelled that. The bear turned around and left him."
Andi recalled the scene and said the mother bear appeared only a metre away from him.
"I had my side turned away from it, so when I saw it bounding towards me I just didn’t have time to think about what to do," he said.
"It bit my leg, held on to it, and dragged me and threw me about. I was crying out for help, but there wasn’t anything anyone could do.
"I was in a state of shock, so I don’t remember the pain. But this momma bear was suddenly a metre away from me. It was so loud.
"The bear let go of me after Lara told me to punch it in the face. I hit it. It then went away. I suppose I’m lucky I got through it. But I’d have been luckier not being attacked."
The PhD students, who live in Berlin, had decided to embark on a five-day expedition.
They said they saw a snake, a lizard and six wild boar on their first day.
Lara said: "This was supposed to be a hard but pleasant hike through the Romanian mountains.
"I’d read up about bears and panthers, but Andi had persuaded me not to bring a bear spray because he thought it’d be more likely that it would explode."
