Fight or die: US jogger who survived mountain lion attack describes his struggle
- Colorado man, who admitted having ‘zero’ martial arts or wrestling skills, said he acted purely on adrenaline and killed the animal by stepping on its throat
A 31-year-old man who fended off and suffocated a mountain lion when it attacked him on a Colorado jogging trail last week described on Thursday how he killed the big cat by stepping on its throat during a life-or-death struggle.
Speaking for the first time publicly since the February 4 incident that left him with still-visible lacerations on his neck and face, Travis Kauffman described for reporters the harrowing three-minute encounter.
Kauffman said he was running at the Horsetooth Mountain Open Space, about 100km (65 miles) northwest of Denver, when he heard pine needles rustling and turned his head only to come face-to-face with a young cougar.
“I was bummed out to see a mountain lion,” he said at a news conference in Fort Collins, Colorado, where the environmental consultant lives with his girlfriend.
Kauffman raised his arms and shouted at the cougar, but it pounced and locked its jaw on his right wrist and clawed at his face. His attempts to halt the attack by stabbing the predator with sticks and hitting it on the head with a rock did not work.
Ultimately, he was able to pin the cougar down and put his foot on its neck and choke it until it stopped thrashing. He worried during the struggle that another cougar would come along and join the tussle.