Utah snowboarder fends off mountain lion at ski resort: ‘Fight response’
A man in Utah used his handy snowboard to defend himself after a mountain lion attacked him on the snowy slopes.
Charlie Duffy wrote in an Instagram post of his near-death experience at a ski resort in Beaver Mountain, Utah on Sunday, Feb. 4.
Duffy told local station, KSL-TV, that he was walking along when he noticed fresh paw prints that immediately put him “on edge.”
“A little less than halfway through, I started to see some fresh paw prints,” Duffy said. “And that just got me, you know, on edge. Aware of my surroundings, just constantly looking around.”
Moments later, the snowboarder said that he looked up and noticed a mountain lion just steps away.
“I looked over my left shoulder and, you know, five or six feet behind me, about three or four feet up I saw a mountain lion,” he told the local outlet.
In his social media post, Duffy said that the mountain lion looked like it was “getting ready to pounce.”
The young man acted quickly, and swung his snowboard “with full force” at the mountain lion that was jumping towards him.
“My fight response instantly kicked in, and I grabbed my board in my right hand and swung with full force at the jumping mountain lion,” he wrote on Instagram.
Duffy said that the large cat “barely” grazed his neck before it got knocked to the ground by his handy snowboard.
He said that his brush with death was not over, and the mountain lion proceeded to get back up and lumber towards him.
Duffy wrote that he noticed that the cat was “starving to death” and was injured from the snowboard-induced blow.
“I kept pushing it back, and it eventually ran off very disoriented,” Duffy wrote. “I am lucky to be here today and to only receive a couple of small scratches from the cat.”
Photos posted on Instagram showed Duffy’s torn jacket where the mountain lion attacked him.
After sharing his story on Instagram, snowboard brands Nitro and 686 pledged to send Duffy some new snowboarding gear.
“Insane! We gotta send you a new board!!! Glad you are okay,” Nitro Snowboards commented.
“INSANE. We’re gonna get that repaired for you,” 686 wrote.