A Colorado runner who fought off and killed a mountain lion who ambushed him is speaking outabout the attack that left him with multiple gashes to his face and arms.
Travis Kauffman laced up his running shoes on February 4 and headed out for a 12- to 15-mile jog through the wilderness of Horsetooth Mountain. But not long into his run, the 31-year-old heard the sound of pine needles crackling behind him, and turned around to come eye-to-eye with a juvenile mountain lion, he recalled in a press conference on Thursday.
“One of my worst fears was confirmed,” Kauffman told reporters, according toCBS Denver. “I just had my heart sink into my stomach a little bit.”
The lion — which weighed 35 to 40 pounds, a necropsy later revealed — quickly pounced on Kauffman and sunk its teeth into his arms.
Kauffman said he and the animal engaged in a “wrestling match” and fell from the side of the trail, where he was able to clasp down the cougar’s hind legs to keep it from moving. With his right arm still in the animal’s jaws, Kauffman grabbed a rock with his free hand.
Francis Apesteguy/Getty
“I tried to give it a few bashes in the back of the head,” he said, “but unfortunately I kind of had a tough time swinging [the rock] with my arm still locked into the cat’s jaws.”
Worried that other lions could show up at any moment, and with little to no options left, Kauffman moved into position to suffocate the animal.
“I was able to shift my weight and get a foot on its neck,” heexplained. “I stepped on its neck with my right foot and just slowly after a few minutes I thought I would be getting close and then it would start thrashing again — and I had a few more scratches that resulted from those thrashes at that point — and I’d say another couple minutes later it finally stopped moving.”
Travis Kauffman.
In the initial report of the attack, Colorado Parks and Wildlife said that mountain lion attacks are rare, with “fewer than 20 fatalities in North America in more than 100 years.” In three decades, the state has only seen 16 injuries and three fatalities as a result of cougar attacks.
“During the whole process I didn’t really make that many decisions. There was a lot of instinct,” Kauffman toldKUNC. “And so there weren’t a lot of decisions to second-guess or a lot of critical moments that I had to rethink or go through and reprocess.
He added: “For the most part I don’t feel any residual trauma from it. And I tend to like to move forward. That’s kind of my personality.”
source: people.com
