Woman attacked by bear in California vacation home – KIRO 7 News Seattle

PLACER COUNTY, Calif .– A Californian woman said she was lucky enough to be alive after she was attacked by a bear that several reports made it into the kitchen of her family’s vacation home in North Lake Tahoe.

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Laurel-Rose Von Hoffmann-Curzi, 66, had surgery at UC Davis after suffering severe facial injuries and cuts to her arms, chest and back during the attack early Saturday morning at her family’s home in Tahoe Vista, KTVU reported SFGate.

“I am so incredibly happy to be still alive,” Hoffmann-Curzi told KPIX-TV on Wednesday. “No question.”

The Orinda resident told SFGate that she had isolated herself in the vacation home to protect herself from COVID-19 as she is also battling stage 4 lymphoma, which affects the immune system’s response. She told the news site that given her condition, she didn’t think the COVID-19 vaccine gave her good protection from the virus.

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According to KTVU, she woke up early on Saturday morning after hearing loud noises from the kitchen. When she went to check what was making the noise, she saw a bear lit by the light from the open freezer, SFGate reported.

“I could see the freezer door half open … and it was like, ‘Oh my god. That’s a bear, ‘”she told KPIX. “And the next thing that happens is I’ll be torn apart.”

She screamed, woke her son and husband, and threw a quilt on the bear on the stairwell, SFGate reported. She told the news site that after her son and husband appeared, the bear left the same route it came in: through the unlocked front door of the house.

The authorities have opened an investigation into the attack. Captain Patrick Foy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife told KTVU that they were collecting DNA samples from Hoffman-Curzi’s injuries and clothing in order to create a profile to identify the bear responsible for the plague.

He said that if the officials can successfully identify the bear, they will plan to remove it and euthanize it.

“The scary part is that (the bear) will do it again,” Hoffmann-Curzi told SFGate. “He’ll come back to our house because he knows there’s food in there. That’s a dangerous bear. “

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