Environment

Maureen Espinosa Saves Daughter Maya, Three, from Cougar Attack

by cyn.khoo | June 18, 2009 at 01:10 pm

142 views | 34 Recommendations | 4 comments

Maureen Espinosa saved her three-year-old daughter, Maya, from a cougar attack in Squamish, British Columbia, on June 16. The mother and daughter were picking salmonberries near their home in Brackendale, when a cougar lunged toward Maya. According to Espinosa, the cougar flew straight at, then jumped on top of and rolled her daughter around on the ground.

Espinosa then threw her own body between the cougar and her daughter, pushed the cougar off her back, and ran away with her daughter in her arms.

Maya suffered head puncture wounds and arm and ear lacerations, but is not seriously injured and was released from the hospital on the same day, after receiving stitches.

“I just feel really blessed and really grateful and really lucky,” said Ms. Espinosa, who spent a restless night reliving the attack.

“I had a real weird sort of connection with the cougar, too, because there was a moment of eye contact and there was a long moment of physical contact because it was on my back and shoulders and arms and I had to pry him off and push him off.”

After the ordeal, conservation officers tracked and shot a young male cougar believed to be the one that attacked Maya. According to conservation officer Chris Doyle in The Province, cougar activity has risen recently in the area, including 30 sightings of at least four different cougars.

0 See all footage | View Slideshow

Share: email story | add to any | | facebook | stumbleupon

recommend This comment thread is now closed

sara star

at 13:28 on June 18th, 2009

The eye contact is strange... Be hard to push a cougar off your back. Sounds like he just ran off...

Amy Judd

at 14:33 on June 18th, 2009

This is amazing - although the cougar was put down, which I feel really bad about.

cyn.khoo

at 15:28 on June 18th, 2009

I do, too. It's not like it was its "fault", in the human sense.

Barbara McPherson

at 17:52 on June 18th, 2009

We have quite a few cougars on Vancouver Island, and every once in awhile they attack a person. They can be quite deadly so M. Espinosa was truly fortunate in her encounter.