Anne Hjelle was bicycling along a wilderness trail when a mountain lion sprang from the brush, pounced on her back and dragged her off by the head as fellow bikers threw rocks at the animal and tried to pull her away.
The cougar finally ran off, leaving Hjelle -- a former Marine who works as a fitness instructor -- bloody and near death. Hjelle, 30, lay in serious condition Friday after the mauling Thursday evening in Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park.
PHOTO: AP
"This guy would not let go. He had a hold of her face," said Debbie Nichols, who was riding with Hjelle and held on to her friend during a desperate tug-of-war with the cat.
"I just told her, `I'm never letting go.'"
Authorities suspect the same mountain lion also killed 35-year-old Mark Jeffrey Reynolds, an amateur mountain bike racer whose half-eaten body was found Thursday in the park near his disabled bike. He had apparently been killed earlier in the day.
"The chains fell off and somehow broke, and while he was attempting to fix his bike is when the attack happened," said Jim Amormino, a spokesman for the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
The two attacks shocked people in Southern California and reminded them of the dangers of the outdoors in places where suburban sprawl has encroached on the wilderness.
A 2-year-old male mountain lion, which weighed about 50kg, was shot and killed Thursday night after it returned to where Reynolds' body was found.
Initial tests conducted Friday revealed that tissues consistent with human skin were found in the stomach of the male cat, said state Fish and Game spokeswoman Chamois Andersen. The full necropsy will be completed next week, she said.
"We are fairly confident we have the sole cat that was responsible for both attacks," Andersen said.
Footprints taken at the site of both attacks had the same measurements, state officials said. A female mountain lion was also being tested after it was hit by a car and killed late Thursday in the area.
California has had only 14 mountain lion attacks on humans -- six of them deadly -- in the past 114 years, said state Fish and Game Department biologist Doug Updike.
The park where the attacks occurred is in an area of Orange County bordered by Cleveland National Forest and several residential developments, and is designated as a wildlife habitat.
"As long as mountain lions walk this earth, there is going to be some risk from them," said Lynn Sadler, executive director of the Mountain Lion Foundation, a nonprofit group dedicated to saving America's lions. "It's not an amusement park -- the shark doesn't pull back at the last second. The risks are real, even as they are part of the appeal."
The lion that attacked Hjelle dragged her from the bike trail into a ravine. Nichols screamed for help and grabbed Hjelle's legs to free her while other cyclists threw rocks at the cat until it fled.
Jacke Van Woerkom said she was riding behind Hjelle and Nichols and later spoke to Nichols at the hospital.
"She had some blood on her face. She definitely showed signs of a major struggle," Van Woerkom said. "She was shaking, trembling. She said `I was not going to let go. I was not going to let go."'
Sadler said fighting back was the right thing to do: "Predators can't afford to get hurt. If you fight back, you don't seem like prey to them."
Reynolds worked at a sports management firm and had won bike-race championships in his age category.
"My conciliation is Mark was doing what he loved the most, and that was riding his bicycle," said his mother, Dona Reynolds.
Updike estimates there are between 4,000 and 6,000 adult lions roaming California. State law prohibits hunting or killing them.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese