8/24/2023 0 Comments Cat attacks runner?![]() “Anytime I play with him, he gets on his back and his back legs go crazy and start scratching. “I think I’ve only been a ‘cat dad’ for about six months now,” he said, glancing at his girlfriend, Annie Bierbower, for confirmation. It was a maneuver he had noticed prevented his pet cat from clawing him when they played at home. He and the animal tumbled down the south side of the path, and Kauffman was able to get on top of the cat and pin down its back legs. With only one free hand, Kauffman wrestled with the mountain lion, which weighed between 20 pounds and 80 pounds. “But I was looking down and seeing its claws retracting and coming out. “I was surprised at the silence,” Kauffman said. It was the only sound he can remember no growling, raspy purring or shrieking. The cougar gnashed its teeth back and forth, and Kauffman could hear his ligaments and tendons snapping. ![]() He said “waves of electricity” shot through the fingers. The cougar’s canines pierced his gloves and sank into the nerves in the meaty part of his palm. “I realized how close it was getting to my eyes, and it got a claw into my lip.” “It started to (move up to) my face and neck, and that’s when my fear response turned more into a fight response.” Kauffman said calmly, his blue Patagonia fleece dotted with teeth marks. The juvenile mountain lion, also known as a puma or cougar, which Kauffman estimated to be about 3 to 4 feet wide and 2½ feet tall, leapt at him and locked its teeth around his right wrist. Kauffman had read about what to do if he encountered a mountain lion, so he halted, threw his hands up in the air and yelled to intimidate the animal. “My heart sank into my stomach,” he said Thursday during a news conference in Fort Collins, the first time he had spoken publicly about surviving the attack. Then, “one of his worst fears was confirmed.” Just minutes before spotting the big cat, he had completed the tough first ascent. ![]() He had biked the West Ridge Trail, which is steep, technical and remote.
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