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King County Sheriff’s spokesman Sgt. Ryan Abbott said the pair, whose identities haven't been released, were attacked while they were going for a mountain bike ride in North Bend, east of Seattle.
It is not clear if the victims were biking together or separately.
That must have been a horrific experience. Apparently the survivor is in serious condition although he was able to escape. Imagine the mental aspects of all this...
The authorities said the two cyclists saw the cougar, a 100-pound male, in pursuit and one of them screamed. They stopped, got off their bikes and made noise to ward it off as people in such situations are advised to do, the authorities said.
At first, it appeared to work. The cougar fled. But as they were about to pedal away, the cougar returned, Sgt. Ryan Abbott of the King County Sheriff’s Office said. It jumped on Isaac M. Sederbaum, putting its mouth around his head and shaking him. It released him and chased after the other cyclist, Sonja J. Brooks, who had started to run.
As Mr. Sederbaum, who had been bloodied but survived, rode away from the scene, he could see the cougar dragging Ms. Brooks into the woods, Sergeant Abbott said. Mr. Sederbaum later told the authorities that he had to travel about two miles before getting a cellphone signal and calling 911.
By the time help arrived, it was too late. Officers found the body of Ms. Brooks, 32, underneath a log and debris in what appeared to be the cougar’s den. The animal was atop the body, said Capt. Alan Myers of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife Police.
The attack happened around Lake Hancock, near Snoqualmie, Wash., about 30 miles east of Seattle. Though cougars, which are also called mountain lions and pumas, are known to roam the outskirts of North Bend, Wash., a five-minute drive from Snoqualmie, Captain Myers said attacks on humans are rare. Ms. Brooks’s death was the first time a cougar had killed a human in Washington since 1924, he said.
“Normally we respond to a cougar attack on somebody’s livestock,” Captain Myers said. “People are not on the menu for cougars. They normally want nothing to do with us.”
After locating the cougar, a deputy fired at it and it fled. The authorities later tracked it to a nearby gully using hounds, Captain Myers said. A hound chased the cougar into a tree, and officers fired at least four rounds. The cougar was knocked out of the tree and was fatally shot as it tried to escape.
When it comes to “predators that kill a human being,” the department policy is to destroy the animal, Captain Myers said.
Easy to armchair QB this one..........but I doubt thats what I would have done.
I was in Moab hiking this weekend and carried my g29 daily. I thought about leaving it a couple times to save weight but stories like this always keep it on my side.
Too bad these folks didn't do the same! : (
“Tom Fucoloro, a writer for Seattle Bike Blog, said Brooks had created a local bike community in which women, transgender people and others can feel welcome.”
Mainly for the freaking 'Pet dogs' off leash that get very aggressive and those aforementioned Transgenders-----haha
#LovinLife
Robb
On another note, if I'm on my bike and I see a lion chasing me I think my first response will be to pedal faster not stop!
"They stopped, got off their bikes and made noise to ward it off as people in such situations are advised to do, the authorities said."
IT WILL HAPPEN AGAIN, GUARANTEED.
Terry
Cats'll chase anything that runs from them, pretty much. And when you're hunched over the bars, you look more like a fleeing 4-legged than a Big Scary 2-Legged.
" if I'm on my bike and I see a lion chasing me I think my first response will be to pedal faster not stop!" Me, too, unfortunately. Their instinctive response is to chase down prey, and our instinctive response to being treated as prey is to run like hell.
Fastest I've ever clocked myself on MTB was 38 mph - on a slight down-grade with a stiff tail-wind. And on pavement. I was Fit as hell, pushing hard in top gear, and getting to that point where you're spinning so fast you start feeling uncoordinated.
If you were to start accelerating from the time you realized a cat was after you, you'd be damned lucky to get far enough to complete your first up-shift. Add in a rough surface, maybe an incline... You'd be better off turning to fight it bare-handed, and getting off the bike quick enough to throw it up as a shield on that first lunge would be even better.
Though monumentally difficult to talk yourself into at the time
This sounded to me like an exploratory attack, at least at first, or they wouldn't have been able to drive him off that first time. Guess he decided that he could stand getting smacked that hard a few more times if there was a meal in it. They just needed something more persuasive than a bicycle as a deterrent.
I'm 100% certain that Houndy is right that this will not be the last. Not probably going to put any dent in the human population, but we may see hikers and bikers becoming less numerous and better armed...
Hey, wait a minute... What's so bad about THAT??
