- He had just ripped my face off and
for that split second I told myself I didn't want to live.
January 8, 2004, my friend Debbie and I decided to go
for a mountain bike ride after work.
We rode together pretty often and we were great friends.
We met at a local park called Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park.
It's kind of our home turf.
I had been out of town for Christmas
and hadn't really been riding so I thought,
oh, we'll just do a quick loop,
45 minutes in and out.
We got on the trail and I remember
seeing a lot of people out there.
I was kind of surprised for it being a weekday.
We climbed up a fireroad called Mustard Road.
It's kind of the hard work of the route we had chosen
and then you get to the top to an area called Four Corners
where people tend to kind of catch their breath, regroup
and chatted for a couple of minutes.
Debbie and I took off down Cactus.
About a minute and a half later down the trail
we picked up speed again.
We were kind of twisting and turning.
Suddenly, I felt something grab a hold of me.
It felt like I just got hit by a bus.
I couldn't believe how hard I hit the ground.
I realized then that the animal actually had a hold of me.
The claws were dug into my shoulders and its fangs
were dug into the back of my neck
and I realized there's only one animal out there
that could do something like this
and that's a mountain lion.
As soon as it grabbed a hold of me,
I realized it's trying to drag me off of the trail.
I can hear Debbie screaming and at first
when she came around the corner
and saw this huge lion on top of me,
she got off her bike and grabbed it and threw it
toward the lion trying to scare him off.
Well, it got caught up in the bushes
and it didn't seem to phase him at all.
So, he continued dragging me down the trail.
Debbie realized he's about to get away with me.
I realized that he was readjusting his grip
every time he would drag me.
So, he would drag me a couple of feet
and then readjust his grip.
So, he went from the back of my neck to the side of my head.
He closed down his grip
and my ear was separated from my skull.
He moved his grip again onto the left side of my face
and as he closed down I could feel
my entire cheek tear away.
I was surprised at how easily it happened.
It felt like a hot knife through butter.
It took no effort at all,
but I did realize the damage he had just done.
He had just ripped my face off
and for that split second I told myself
I didn't want to live.
But then my next thought was of my husband James
and how I know he would want me to fight as hard as I could,
but he was too fast.
He grabbed me by the front of the throat
and closed down his grip.
And as he did so, everything went black.
I knew at that point my life was over.
I was kind of surprised that I hadn't
seen any tunnel of light.
I hadn't seen my life flash before my eyes.
This was it.
What a way to go.
But, few seconds later,
I found myself gasping for air.
I had no idea what had happened,
how the lion was now gone.
All I know is, I'm choking,
I can't get any air and I realize
I'm actually choking on my own blood.
Debbie was right there and I motioned
to have her try to help me to sit up
to see if I could clear my airway.
I just concentrated on slowing down my breathing
and trying to get little bits of air
and over the course of the next couple of minutes
I could finally breathe normally.
Mountain bikers had heard her screaming during the attack
and they had ridden down the trail
to find out what was going on.
The guys started picking up softball-sized rocks
and throwing them toward the lion
and at that point he released his grip and let me go.
It is an absolute miracle that I'm still here.
There's almost no way to explain how I survived this.
Other survivors of traumatic experiences talk about
I wouldn't change a thing.
I disagree, for myself.
I would skip the lion attack.
I am so grateful to still be alive.
I'm grateful for the role everyone played
to allow me to still be alive.
I know that no one knows how they would react
in a traumatic situation like this,
but all I know is everything worked together
for me to still be here.