'I could feel the bones crushing': Cyclists valiantly fight off cougar that had their friend down for the count

A group of seasoned female cyclists were ripping through the forested Tokul Creek trail northeast of Fall City, Washington, when they came across a pair of cougars. The female cat took off running. The young male cougar, however, stuck around for a fight and a feast.

Owing to the perseverance and grit of the five cyclists — all in their 50s and 60s — the cougar ultimately lost the fight and became a feast for worms.

KUOW-FM reported that the cyclists met at the Tokul Creek trail on Feb. 17, then ventured some 19 miles in before encountering the cats. The group comprised Keri Bergere, 60; Annie Bilotta, 64; Auna Tietz, 59; Tisch Williams, 59; and Erica Wolf, 51.

The cats burst from the brush, dividing the riding team.

Tietz shouted, "Cougar! Cougar!"

The yelling was apparently enough to prompt the first cat to flee the scene, but not the other. The male lion, evidently unfazed, lunged at Bergere.

"Looking to my right, I saw the cougar's face," Bergere told KUOW. "It was just a split second, and he tackled me off my bike."

The cougar pulled the rider into the ditch that runs alongside the trail and clamped down on her jaw.

"I thought my teeth were coming loose, and I was gonna swallow my teeth," Bergere recalled. "I could feel the bones crushing, and I could feel it tearing back."

The beast, which the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife indicated was roughly a 1-year-old 75-pound cougar, had Bergere pinned and down for the count.

"I felt like it was suffocating me," said Bergere. "I could taste the blood in my mouth."

As the cyclist breathed what could have been her last, she reportedly heard the roar of her fellow riders and some choice language.

"These ladies are not big, and they were killing this cougar," said Bergere. "They were not going to let it get me."

"I immediately tried to choke the cougar, which was like trying to choke a rock," Bilotta told KING-TV. "Then, Erica and Tisch come over with sticks and a rock and we're hand-to-hand combat battling this thing."

While the riders thwacked at the beast with rocks, sticks, and an almost useless 2-inch knife, Bergere desperately attempted to unhinge its jaw, stabbing her fingers into its eyes, nostrils, and mouth.

Bilotta reportedly joined Bergere in digging into the cougar's mouth while Tietz yanked on the beast's leg.

"The cougar had his claws pretty much around her, in attack mode," Tietz told KUOW. "Like, 'I will have my prey now, and within a couple minutes I will eat her.'"

Looking to adopt the "most drastic measure," Tietz found a 25-pound melon-sized rock. She hoisted it between her legs about a foot off the ground, got the thumbs-up from Bergere, whose head was just next to the cougar's, then dropped the rock. Once was not enough, so Tietz dropped it on the cougar another four or five times.

This drastic measure was not, however, enough.

"I was sitting down, and I actually said, 'I can't do this any more,'" said Tietz. "But then I saw all the other girls doing their thing and helping, and I of course regained strength, and I saw, 'Okay, I can do this.'"

The riders refused to relent, and their fighting paid off: After fifteen minutes in the grips of the cougar, Bergere finally was able to break free of its jaws.

Bergere, bloodied but still alive, crawled over to the trail while her fellow riders struggled to keep the cougar down.

The riders reportedly grabbed Wolf's $6,000 bicycle and used it to pin down the cat until help arrived.

"I know for a fact I would be dead if they didn't come back in, I would just be gone," Bergere told KING. "That cougar had me."

WDFW Officer Chris Moszeter arrived on the scene and put a bullet between the cougar's shoulders while the women held it down, bringing the battle to a close.

"The people on the scene took immediate action to render aid, and one of our officers was able to arrive within minutes to continue medical aid and coordinate transport," said WDFW Lt. Erik Olson. "We may have had a very different outcome without their heroic efforts."

According to a GoFundMe campaign set up to help Bergere with her recovery, she suffered severe trauma to the face and permanent nerve damage.

Bergere was released from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle on Feb. 22 and reunited with an earring the beast had torn out and consumed.

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