A young woman walked into a restaurant last week and sat close enough to get a good look at Anne Hjelle's face. A mountain lion had torn off the left side four years before, leaving it hanging by a flap of skin. Six surgeries hadn't camouflaged the scars.
"She saw me and had a deer-in-the-headlights look," said Hjelle, 35, of Mission Viejo. "She quickly got up and moved so she didn't have to look at me."
The stranger's reaction didn't hurt Hjelle's feelings.
"I've had to learn the hard way that beauty comes from within," she said.
Since being mauled by a mountain lion Jan. 8, 2004, while biking in Orange County's Whiting Ranch Wilderness Park, Hjelle has been purposefully knocking down the fears borne from the jaws of a cougar. It's a determination driven by her love of the outdoors, the discipline and toughness drilled into her as a Marine, the courage gained as a competitive mountain biker and her belief that the Bible instructs her to "fear not."
A week after the attack -- her 40 bite marks and wounds held together by 200 stitches and staples -- she hiked to the spot where the cougar ambushed her, taking the lead as family and friends followed. It was her first step in making sure she wasn't going to be "a prisoner of the drama."
Soon after leaving the hospital, Hjelle -- a personal trainer who had a model's looks -- put away the hats and sunglasses she used to hide her face. She started to put her hair in a ponytail. She wasn't going to be ashamed.
"I could have curled up into a ball or gotten on with my life," said Hjelle, a former Marine helicopter mechanic. "It's not easy, but I wanted to conquer my fears -- just like you do in mountain biking."
On a sunny winter afternoon in early 2004, Hjelle headed out for a ride with Debi Nicholls, a woman whose intensity during the rides matched Hjelle's.
Barreling down Cactus Hill Trail, a narrow dirt path that slices through tall brush and fields of cactuses, Hjelle saw a blur leaping from the brush. She thought she had startled a deer. But then the mountain lion hit her "like a train."
She remembers everything. The silence of the attack. The color of the lion's fur. Her prayer for Jesus' protection as the amazingly strong cat dragged her toward a ravine.
Nicholls tossed her bike at the mountain lion. Then she grabbed her friend's left calf, locked in a fierce tug of war with the animal.
