Black bear mauls woman on Okanagan Highland hiking trail

WARNING: This story contains a graphic photograph

A woman from Greenwood, B.C. is nursing her wounds after a bear knocked her flat on her back on an Okanagan hikingtrail last weekend.

Rachel Lautardsays shewas mauled by the small black bear while camping nearConkleLake Provincial Park, southeast ofKelowna in the Boundary Region.

"I couldn't believe this was happening to me," she saidrecalling theexperience.

Lautard was on an afternoon hike with her family and a friendwhen she decided to pick up her pace and got ahead of the others.

She says sheheard loud footsteps behind her sosheturned around and sawa dog run by in a flash followed quickly by a black bear chargingtowards her.

"The next thing I know I was on my back with this bear on top of me," she said."I was wearing steel-toed work boots at the time and I was kicking and basicallybicyclingand screaming for help."

She doesn't remember how long the two tussled for as she struggled to get free.

"He bit into my leg and he was holding on butI was kickingas hard as I could."

Stitches needed

Lautardbelieves the bear may have been chasing the dog but attacked her instead.

She suspects the animal may have been distracted and eventually let go of her of her leg, after the dog returned.

"He got off, and I got up," said Lautard, who says she jumped to her feet despite being injured.

Her friend who happened to be a doctor then arrived. But the bear was reluctant to leave even as they flailed their arms and screamed at it.

After her friend "ran at it", she says the bear climbed up a tree and finally took off. The two then worked on getting her wounds dressed and helped herout of the bush.

She was left with two puncture wounds and a gash on her left calf that needed 10 stitches.

Lautard says sheseesbears "all the time"and haseven hadanother bear run at herbut never with such ferocity and intensity.

With files from Daybreak South