A Washington woman attacked by a bear says her dogs caused the incident, then came to the rescue

It was late morning and the heat was rising outside Kettle Falls, Washington, when Lynn O’Connor came face to face with a bear.

She had been walking her dogs on her property in a rural corner of northeastern Washington state near the Idaho and Canadian border, about 70 miles north of Spokane.

O’Connor has two dogs and a neighbor’s dog regularly joins them on daily walks through the fields on the edge of the Colville National Forest.

“They started following something in the field and I thought it was cows, because that’s what they do, they follow cows,” she said. “It turned out it wasn’t a cow. It was a bear.”

The bear rounded a patch of brush about six feet behind O’Connor and headed in her direction.

“All of a sudden, we were face to face on the course,” O’Connor said. “She started huffing and puffing and clawing.”

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O’Connor, a retired ranger, tried to remember everything you should do when you encounter a bear. She tried to make herself bigger. She called out to the bear. She slowly started to walk away, but the bear continued to advance towards her.

She recalled hearing on a CBC show that someone had successfully fended off a grizzly bear by punching her in the nose.

“So, I thought, OK, I’ll give it a shot,” she said.

She punched the bear in the nose, but it still didn’t stop moving forward.

At that point, O’Connor said he knew an attack was imminent.

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He dropped to the path and curled up into a ball.

“She was on top of me and I think what happened then was kick, swipe, swipe, and then my dogs were on her and they chased her off,” she said. “And it’s all over.”

She said the entire encounter probably lasted no more than 10-15 seconds.

O’Connor stood up and looked out over the field.

“I saw her cub chasing the whole group of dogs and the bear and then I realized what she was doing,” she said.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife officials responded to the scene, and O’Connor was airlifted to Spokane, where she was treated for her injuries. As a retired ranger familiar with the policies surrounding bear attacks, O’Connor knew what state officials would do next.

“I told them, ‘Don’t kill her. Please don’t kill her,’” she recalled. “Just trying to do what the mother bears do.”

State officials spent the afternoon hunting the bear with dogs, but the temperature soared to nearly 100 degrees. After one of the dogs collapsed from the heat, they called off the search.

Even though the search was suspended, state officials shot a bear on O’Connor’s property the next day. O’Connor said it was not the same bear that attacked her.

O’Connor blames herself for not making more noise and for being too casual about being in a wild area with which she has become so familiar.

“That’s why I’m talking about wildlife safety,” she said. “Since I put her in danger, another bear has been shot.”

O’Connor said she had just taken her first walk since Wednesday’s attack. She said family members are more willing to go with her following the attack.

Now he makes his dogs wear bells so they’re more likely to scare off the bears before they get too close.

“I don’t mind seeing bears because they usually run away,” O’Connor said. “But I’m kind of okay with not seeing one for the rest of the season.”