A bike rider was attacked by a mountain lion as she rode through a popular Orange County wilderness park Thursday, and the body of a man, who may have been killed by the same animal, was found nearby.
If confirmed, the death would be the first killing of a human by a mountain lion in California since 1994.
Hours later, sheriff's deputies shot to death a mountain lion spotted near where the man's body had been found. They said they were not certain they had killed the animal responsible for the attacks.
Witnesses to the attack on the woman said the mountain lion clamped its jaws around her head and dragged her off the trail before she was rescued by other riders.
"I have never seen anything like this -- it was a tug of war between the mountain lion trying to drag her down the ravine by her face" and another cyclist "who had her by the legs," said Mike Castellano, 41, of Dana Point.
Capt. Stephen Miller, a spokesman for the Orange County Fire Authority, who was called to the scene at Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park in the foothills of the Santa Ana Mountains, said, "It's not unusual to have mountain lion sightings," but this kind of attack "is absolutely incredible."
The woman, who was attacked about 4 p.m., was identified by friends as Anne Hjelle, 30, of Santa Ana. She was taken to Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo with cuts.
Hospital officials said she was in serious condition.
Authorities did not release the name of the dead man, whose body was found near where Hjelle had been attacked. It was not immediately clear when and how he had been killed -- by the mountain lion or something else.
A witness to the attack on Hjelle, Nils Magnuson, 33, of Long Beach, said he had stopped to investigate an abandoned bike alongside the trail. Moments later, he said, he heard a scream from one of two women riding ahead of him.
When he reached the scene, he saw Hjelle's head in the mountain lion's mouth. "All I could see was her body," he said. "I couldn't see her head at all."
The lion had pulled Hjelle off her bike and dragged her into the brush. Debi Nicholls, Hjelle's riding companion, held on to her legs and screamed. Magnuson and Castellano rushed to help, throwing rocks at the cougar.
"There was a lot of blood," Castellano said. "I jumped down the ravine ... grabbed a couple of rocks. I was maybe 10 feet from the lion."
