A woman survived a mauling by a bear by repeatedly punching the animal and crawling into a bush as her Chihuahua-mix distracted the attacker.
Melinda LeBarron was left with broken bones, cuts and bruises and multiple bites after the attack outside her home in rural Pennsylvania on Wednesday evening, her son said. She was hospitalised in critical condition on Friday.
The attack began when she went outside with her dog around 6 p.m. When the dog barked, Melinda LeBarron, 51, looked around to see what had startled the canine. “The next thing she knew, she was on the ground getting slammed around,” said her son.
The black bear dragged Melinda about 70 metres through her yard, across a road, and into a thicket, while the dog tried to intervene, biting the black bear several times. Some of her clothes were ripped off in the process.
Before Ms. LeBarron was able to speak, she wrote on a pad to ask how her dog was doing.
