For all the good things about bears, like their ability to dance and ride on top of garbage trucks for five miles, it’s important to remember that they are wild, unpredictable animals that you should steer clear of if at all possible. But if you do happen upon one in the wild and it attacks you, you should try to be like 63-year-old Karen Osborne, who repeatedly punched the bear in the face.
NBC Washington reports that Osborne was walking her daughter’s dog Wednesday night when, because of how dark it was, she inadvertently walked between a bear and her cubs. The bear attacked, causing Osborne to instinctively fight back.
“She said she punched him in the face a couple times,” her husband, Ronald Osborne, said. “She’s a tough babe.”
Osborne then decided, smartly, that she was better off lying still and pretending to be dead.
“She went into a fetal position and called 911 laying there,” Paul Peditto with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources told NBC Washington. “At that point, the bear probably realized the threat to her cubs had subsided.”
The bear eventually left Osborne alone and returned to the woods. But unfortunately, she was tracked and euthanized, as is standard DNR protocol for a bear that has attacked a human.
“She’s been in the area forever. We all kind of love her,” Osborne’s daughter, Tara Snuffin, said. “We’re all very sad that this had to happen this way.”
As for Osborne, she suffered a broken arm and received 60 stitches for a cut to her head. She’s currently listed as in good condition.
If this story is too sad for you, please remember that Otis, a 1,000 pound Grizzly better known as the “Fat Bear Champion of Alaska,” is chilling somewhere up north right now, waiting lazily by a river for his dinner to swim past.
Messy breakups, deranged antics, pets gone wild. The Internet car-crash you can’t turn away from. For more, check out “New Zealand Man Takes His Homemade Jet Boat Out On Flooded Streets,” “Watch: Deer Trapped in American Eagle Store Smashes Through Front Window,” and “Cops: Florida Man Stabbed IHOP Waiter In Retaliation For Food Poisoning.“
