'I got attacked by a mountain lion,' survivor of cougar mauling says in dramatic 911 call
In a desperate call to 911, the survivor of a rare cougar attack that killed his friend in a remote area of Washington state frantically told a dispatcher that he needed help quick.
"I got attacked by a mountain lion," an emotional Isaac Sederbaum, 31, of Seattle, says in the 911 call obtained by ABC affiliate KOMO-TV in Seattle. "My friend is up there. I'm worried about my friend."
Sederbaum made the call Saturday from the foothills of the Cascade Mountains, about 30 miles southeast of Seattle, where he and his friend, S.J. Brooks, 32, had been mountain biking when the cougar attacked them.
Capt. Alan Myers of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife told ABC News that the pair initially fought off the mountain lion, using one of their bikes to hit it and shoo it away. But just as they let their guard down, the animal came back and attacked them again.
"As they were starting to collect themselves, collect their breath and were chatting about how incredibly crazy and scary that event was, suddenly one of these victims [Sederbaum] was pounced on and his head was latched onto by the cougar," Myers said. "He was being shaken and attacked violently by the cougar."
Sederbaum told officials that the wild animal let him go when it noticed Brooks running off into the woods.
The mountain lion chased down and killed Brooks as Sederbaum desperately searched for an area where there was cellphone reception so he could call for help.
At one point during the 911 call, the severely injured Sederbaum handed his phone to a passer-by who spoke to the dispatcher.
"So, is he conscious right now?" the 911 dispatcher asked.
The passerby responded, "He's conscious, yeah. He's got some pretty serious lacerations on his face and head."
Sederbaum was discharged this afternoon from Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, where he was flown by medical helicopter the day of the attack, hospital spokeswoman Susan Gregg told ABC News.
Myers told ABC News that a King County sheriff's deputy was the first to arrive at the scene in the timberland about 9 miles north of North Bend. He said that when the deputy found Brooks, the mountain lion was still mauling the body.
He said the deputy fired his gun at the cougar and the animal ran off.
Hunting dogs were brought to the scene and tracked the mountain lion down, corning it in a tree just 50 yards from where first responders were tending to Brooks' body. A state Department of Fish and Wildlife officer shot the mountain lion and killed it.
The animal's carcass was taken to Washington State Universtiy's College of Veterinary Medicine where a necropsy is being performed to determine if the animal was diseased.
"What I can tell you is that they've conducted their first stage of the necropsy on the animal. They've removed the stomach and it's going to be analyzed by our state veterinarian," Myers said.
He said results of the necropsy aren't expected back for a week.
The mountain lion was a male that was 3 to 4 years old.
"I don't know about the nourishment state of it, but I do know that an initial assessment in the field from the biologist said that the animal was emaciated or appeared to be skinnier than normal," Myers said.
Myers said there are about 2,000 cougars living in the wild in Washington state, but it is "incredibly rare" for them to attack humans.
"In fact, this was only the second time that there's been a fatal attack caused by a cougar in the last 100 years in Washington state," said Myers, adding that the last time a mountain lion killed a human is the state was 1924.
