A group of experienced female cyclists were speeding along the forested Tokul Creek Trail northeast of Fall City, Washington, when they encountered two cougars. The female cat started running. But the young male cougar stayed there for the fight and the feast.
Thanks to the patience and perseverance of five cyclists in their 50s and 60s, the cougar ultimately lost the battle and fell prey to the bugs.
Kuoh FM
report The cyclists met on the Tokle Creek Trail on February 17th and traveled about 30 miles before encountering the cat. The group includes Keri Bergere, 60, and Annie Bilotta, 64. Auna Teets, 59 years old. Tish Williams, 59 years old. and Erica Wolfe (51).
The cats jumped out of the bushes and split up the riding team.
Teets yelled, “Cougar! Cougar!”
The screams were apparently enough for the first cat to flee the scene, but the second one was not. The male lion, clearly unfazed, charged towards Bergère.
“I looked to my right and saw the cougar’s face,” Berger told KUOW. “It only took a split second before he tackled me and pulled me off the bike.”
The cougar pulled the rider into a ditch along the trail and clamped its jaws.
“My tooth felt loose and I thought I was going to swallow it,” Berger said. “I felt my bones breaking, I felt my bones tearing apart.”
The beast was discovered by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
shown Berger, a cougar that was about a year old and weighed 75 pounds, was pinned down and held down for the count.
“I felt like I was suffocating,” Berger said. “I tasted blood in my mouth.”
As the cyclist took his last breath, she reportedly heard yells from her fellow riders and some choice words.
“These women weren’t that big, but they were killing this cougar,” Berger said. “They weren’t going to involve me in it.”
“I immediately tried to strangle the cougar, but it was like trying to choke on a rock,” Bilotta said.
Said king tv. “Then Erica and Tish come in with sticks and rocks and we have hand-to-hand combat with them.”
Bergère desperately tried to dislodge the beast’s jaws, sticking his fingers into its eyes, nostrils and mouth as riders beat the animal with rocks, sticks and a nearly useless two-inch knife.
Bilotta and Berger reportedly dug into the cougar’s mouth while Teets pulled the cougar’s legs.
“The cougar was in attack mode, clawing around her,” Teets told KUOW. “Like, ‘If I get my hands on her now, I’ll eat her within minutes.'”
Teets, who was thinking of taking the “most drastic measure,” discovered a 25-pound melon-sized stone. She lifted it up about a foot off the ground between her legs, gave her thumbs up from the bergere where her head was right next to the cougar, and then dropped the stone. Once wasn’t enough, Teets added, and she dropped it on the cougar four or five times.
However, this drastic measure was not enough.
“I sat down and actually said, ‘I can’t do this anymore,'” Teets said. “But then I saw all the other girls doing what they had to do and helping out, and of course I got my juices flowing and I thought, ‘Okay, I can do this.'”
The riders refused to relent and their fight paid off. After being held in the cougar’s grip for 15 minutes, Bergère was finally able to break free from its jaws.
Berger, covered in blood but still alive, crawled closer to the road as his fellow riders struggled to subdue the cougar.
The riders reportedly grabbed Wolfe’s $6,000 bike and used it to hold the cat down until help arrived.
“If they didn’t come back, I’d be dead, I’d just leave,” Berger told KING. “That cougar got me.”
WDFW Officer Chris Moseter arrived on the scene and fired a bullet between the cougar’s shoulders while the women were restraining him, ending the fight.
“People on the scene immediately provided relief efforts and one of our officers arrived within minutes to continue medical assistance and was able to coordinate transport.”
Said WDFW Lt. Eric Olson. “Without their heroic efforts, we might have had a very different outcome.”
according to
gofundme The campaign was launched to help Ms Bergere recover, but she suffered severe facial trauma and permanent nerve damage.
Berger was released from Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center on February 22 and reunited with the earring that the beast tore off and ate.
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