Posted on 01/26/2007 8:04:16 AM PST by rface
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.
Amazing couple. At that age they could be lingering in a nursing home, but not these two.
SHE is 65 with her fiftieth wedding anniversary coming up? Talk about a child bride. Geez.
The husband cracks me up, really.... "Honey, reach in my pocket and see if you can't poke this thing in the eye with that pen I've got!"
That's a long time, glad it seems to have been such a good match!
Seriously, though, the cats live alone and can successfully hunt alone (except for lions), while dogs are social animals, because they must hunt together or starve.
So would have a handgun!
Yeah, I'm chuckling about that exchange, too.
When will PETA demand that charges be filed against her?
ping...
Until recently, I can only remember one report of a lion attack in California. That was about 25 years ago in south Orange County. In recent years there have been at least two attacks in Northern California (one of them fatal), two attacks in San Diego County (one fatal), a man on a horse menaced in the Laguna Mountains, and a lion walking through a campground full of kids in the Cuyamacas. I've seen lion tracks while hiking within sight of subdivisions in east San Diego County. Now we have this report of a lion attacking two humans walking together.
Meanwhile the population of desert bighorns continues to decline.
It's time to repeal the Kitty Protection Initiative and reinstate lion season.
-with PETA members on trial for dumping bodies of animals they killed, there is no one left to protest.
That's all you need to know in the dogs vs. cats debate :)
Can't you control you pets? What happened to the leash law?
It'll happen right after they start drilling in ANWR.
Good advice. I've hiked Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park many times. Amazing place. I believe a famous Star Wars chase scene was filmed there.
Wish someone would say that to Chuck Heston and he would respond.
just mess'in with you...I'm sure those pigs scared you something awful...
Considering how the Greenies have let the beasts repopulate the parks, that's a chance I'll have to take.
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