Mother's fury saves son from cougar’s clutches

A mother who hurled herself at a cougar which had her five-year-old son in its grasp is being credited for saving the boy’s life.

Last Wednesday, four members of the Impey family from Rossland, B.C., were hiking the panoramic Abercrombie Mountain Trail in Washington state. Dad Mark Impey and daughter Isabelle were about 50 metres ahead of mother Dawn and young Simon when the cougar pounced. When Mark Impey heard his wife scream, he figured she stepped on a wasp nest. But he turned around to witness the cougar, its claws in Simon’s head, dragging his son into the bush.

He immediately raced toward his son but by the time he arrived, his wife had rushed the animal, attacking it with an metal water bottle with all her fury. Mark Impey said Saturday that he thinks she hammered the cougar about 15 times in rapid sucession when it let Simon go.


Photo from here.

“She saved Simon’s life,” Impey said. “If she was farther away, it would have been a different story.” When he arrived, Simon was bleeding from gaping head wounds. Dawn’s hands were red, too.

They wrapped Simon’s head and hiked “full speed” back to the trailhead in about an hour, then drove north to a hospital in Trail, B.C., where Simon was treated. He suffered a large gash over his right eye, a smaller one below his left eye, a large cut on top of his head and puncture wounds on his chest and left arm.

But he was released the next day in good condition, aside from a shaved head and plenty of stitches. Impey says Simon is now running around and smiling as if nothing happened, but the parents break down when they talk about the incident.