Woman fought with mountain lion to save husband

A woman saved her husband’s life by clubbing a mountain lion that attacked him while the couple were hiking in a California state park.

Jim and Nell Hamm, who will celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary next month, were in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park when the lion pounced.

“He didn’t scream. It was a different, horrible plea for help, and I turned around, and by then the cat had wrestled Jim to the ground,” Mrs Hamm said from the hospital where her husband was recovering from a torn scalp, puncture wounds and other injuries.

After the attack, game wardens closed the park, about 320 miles north of San Francisco, and released dogs to track the lion. They later shot a pair of lions found near the trail where the attack happened.

The carcasses were flown to a state forensics lab to determine if either animal mauled the man.

Although the Hamms were experienced hikers, neither had seen a mountain lion before Mr Hamm, 70, was mauled, his wife said.

Mrs Hamm said she grabbed a four-inch-wide log and beat the animal with it, but it would not release its hold on her husband’s head.

“Jim was talking to me all through this, and he said, ’I’ve got a pen in my pocket and get the pen and jab him in the eye’,” she said. “So I got the pen and tried to put it in his eye, but it didn’t want to go in as easy as I thought it would.”

When the pen bent and became useless, Mrs Hamm went back to using the log. The lion eventually let go and, with blood on its nose, stood staring at her. She screamed and waved the log until the animal left.

“She saved his life, there is no doubt about it,” said Steve Martarano, a spokesman for the Department of Fish and Game.

Mrs Hamm, 65, said she was scared to leave her dazed and bleeding husband alone, so the couple walked a quarter of a mile to a trail head, where she gathered branches to protect them if more lions came. They waited until a ranger came and summoned help.

“My concern was to get Jim out of there,” she said. “I told him, ’Get up, get up, walk’, and he did.”

Mr Hamm was said to be in a fair condition today. He had to have his lips stitched back together and underwent surgery for lacerations on his head and body.

I highly doubt your assertion that you and your "wife" spend large amounts of time in any dangerous environment, alone together.

But assuming you are not lying, I do hope she abides by your explicit instructions.
Can't have her thinking for herself, and judging a life threatening situation differently than you would, can we?

BTW, I sincerely hope I would have taken up whatever defense mechanism was available, had that been a stranger I saw under attack from an animal.

I have no doubt whatsoever that I would have used my bare hands, if that was all that was available to me, for one that I loved.

I wish I could be as certain that I would do as much for a stranger...just as I doubt a stranger would do as much for me.
How far we have strayed from each other, in our civilized society...

""Can't have her thinking for herself, and judging a life threatening situation differently than you would, can we?"

For your information lady, my "wife" is a brain injury patient due to a tragic car accident 13 years ago. After 11 surgeries to reconstruct her face she is doing as well as she can at this point in time. Her cognitive problems will remain permanently impaired for the rest of her life. She does need me to watch out for her safety. We have been married for 26 years and I look forward to at least that many more with her, in spite of her disabilities.

And furthermore, we do spend most of every day in our woods except in the winter months. It is our business to be in the woods. I was unable to continue my work as usual after her accident and long ongoing recovery period. As her primary caregiver, I went into the organic herb growing business. We are a registered nursery here in NY state and are quite well known in the industry.

We have bears, mountain lions and coyotes that frequently visit our farm, so yes, it is a dangerous environment.

Now don't you wish you would have kept your pompous remarks to yourself? Hope you sleep well tonight.

Actually, no.
And my remarks were not pompous, but yours were.
Especially since nowhere in the article does it mention the woman who saved her husbands life was mentally impaired.
But then again, neither did your original comment include any mention of your wife's mental impairment, just a general implication that all women are mentally impaired, and should instantly obey a man's command, even if doing so quite possibly would have resulted in both of their deaths.

But have a nice life!

I can't believe how insensitive you are. First you call me a "liar" and then you launch an obvious feminist attack on me. If you interpreted my statements in my original post that all women are 'mentally impaired', then you really have a problem, perhaps a MAN issue.???

Whether you like it or not, most men have a better awareness of the potential dangers in a wilderness environment than most women do. They always have and they always will, accept it. How many women loggers have you met?

Ask yourself this question: "Would I (you, sarasmom) rather be lost in the deep woods with one of my girlfriends or would I rather be lost in the woods with a man who is familiar with the dangers that could be lurking behind every rock?" If you answered yes to the first part, then that may explain your attitude towards men.

As for your comment that "[women] should instantly obey a man's command" does apply to the dangerous environment we are discussing here. Nowhere did I mention that this should extend to, say, the kitchen or the bedroom. Yes indeed, they should obey the command and do so immediately (again in a dangerous situation). The same would hold true for a man who was alerted by a woman (or even a child for that matter) of a potential hazard.

I still say that the man should have told his wife to run for help rather telling her to jab out the eye of an obviously pi$$ed off mountain lion.

I stand by my original statement that any man worth his salt would be thinking of his wife's safety first, and yes, "commanded" her to leave immediately. How do we know that her actions of hitting the cat with a stick didn't make things worse and he bit down harder on the man's head? He has taken a turn for the worse and might not survive. Did the wife cause more harm than good? We'll never know the answer.

I was not seeking your sympathy when I described my wife's brain injury and physical impairments, but I did expect a small amount of compassion from you in regards to her injuries. You only offered vile attacks on me for my alleged misogynistic attitude towards women in general.

You are grossly misguided and the most cold-hearted person I have met on FreeRepublic, to date. Please, in the future I ask that you NEVER respond to any of my posts. I will do same.

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