A woman was rushed to a hospital after suffering injuries to her face
and neck while running a marathon in the Valles Caldera National
Preserve in New Mexico.
The New Mexico Department of Game and Fish said that the woman, Karen
Williams, startled the mother bear and its cub while running a marathon
throughout the park.
The cub ran up a tree while the mother attacked the woman, biting her
upper body, head and neck. The other marathon runners came to the aid of
the woman until an ambulance arrived.
She was taken to a hospital, where she is said to be in stable
condition. Police said that they are looking for the bear, and once
caught, it will be euthanized and tested for rabies.
“I was at mile 23.5, where there was some sort of seep, pond or mucky
area at the top of that little hill. When I reached the top, a bear was
charging at me.
“I raised my arms and yelled “no!” Then I saw the cub. Then I was raked
with claws and bitten. I cried out in pain and the bear did not like
that so it hit me with a left hook and bit my neck.
“I rolled into a ball and played dead. She went off about 25 to 30 feet,
stopped at the base of a tree and huffed at her cub that was up about
30 feet.
“The cub cried a bit while trying to get down the tree. The bear kept
glancing my way to make sure that I was still dead. I didn’t know what
the wound on my neck was like because I did not move for fear that the
bear would come on me some more.
“I waited about 10 minutes until I couldn’t hear the cub anymore. Then I
tried to look around, but was having trouble seeing much.
“I tried to sit up, but was nauseated and my arms didn’t seem to work
right. I suffered a fractured right orbit from the mean left hook,
missing parts of eyelid and eyebrow, injury to the belly of my left
bicep and a lot of punctures and lacerations, but I am alive,” Williams
wrote on Facebook.