A nine-year-old girl hiking on a Washington mountain trail with two of her friends Saturday morning fought off an attack by a cougar, surviving with wounds to her face and chest, NBC News reports.
While their friend was getting mauled, the other two girls ran away and got help. The girl fought until the cougar ran off, before adults made it to the scene. The girl, covered in blood, was flown to a local hospital, where is she is being treated for her wounds and is expected to survive.
The young male cougar suspected in the attack was hunted down and killed. Wildlife officials say a cougar attack on a human is a rare occurrence, typically when it’s a mother protecting an unseen cub den. In this case, the cougar attacked like the girl was prey. “In this instance, this little girl did nothing wrong,” Fish and Wildlife spokeswoman Staci Lehman said. “It happened so quickly, and there’s nothing she could have done to prevent it.”