Bear attack survivor recounts how she feared she’d be ‘scalped’ by ‘angry’ beast in backyard nightmare
A Pittsburgh bear attack survivor has emotionally recalled from her hospital bed how she didn’t believe she would be able to escape the ferocious momma bear alive after the beast pounced and tried to scalp her earlier this week in her backyard.
Lee Ann Galante, 55, said she jumped into action to save her dog Smoky out after she let the pooch outside around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday without knowing a momma bear and her three cubs were eating from her bird feeder.
“I didn’t want her to eat my baby,” she told News 11.
That’s when the bear came after the dental hygienist, pushing her face-first into the concrete and biting at her scalp and arm.
“She was on top of me,” Galante emotionally recalled from her hospital bed. “I thought I was going to die…”I didn’t think I was going to make it. I couldn’t believe that this was happening.
“She was pulling so hard on it, I thought I was going to get scalped,” she continued. I’m screaming ‘Someone please help me.’ I’m screaming at the top of my lungs. It was terrifying.”
She suffered a tear behind her ear and had to receive stitches, she told the local outlet.
Galante and her dog were able to get away from the angry bear, but the 55-year-old feared the bear was going to charge at her again.
Once inside her home, she crawled through the kitchen to grab her phone and call 911 to be taken to the hospital, where she still resides.
Her doctors said she was lucky to not have suffered worse injuries, according to News 11.
“She has a fair amount of puncture wounds on the back of her neck, on her arm itself and pretty significant tears or lacerations across her scalp. She also has several broken bones on her nose or face,” trauma surgeon at Allegheny General Hospital, Jennifer Chen, told the outlet.
The dental hygienist is expected to make a full recovery and she’s determined to still go on her trip to Italy next month, saying she’s “going to make it happen, even if I look like this.”
Galante had known there were bears spotted in the area earlier that week, but said she had no idea they were in her backyard.
The Pennsylvania Game Commission came to locate the momma bear and her cubs hiding in a tree in the immediate area and police reported the mother was still “aggressive.”
The mother bear was euthanized and the cubs were tranquilized and released in an unknown area.
