A California woman used her laptop to fight off a bear that had attacked her in her sleep. The 19-year-old woman had been taking a nap on Monday when the black bear entered her garden and began to bite and claw her.
"The bear really viciously started to scratch her and then started to bite into her and the only thing she could do is to grab her laptop and start hitting the bear with it. And that managed to break the bear loose and she ran inside," Capt. Patrick Foy of the California Fish and Wildlife Department told ABC7.
The woman sustained non life-threatening injuries and is at home recovering.
Bears from the San Gabriel Mountains often roam the surrounding neighborhoods and officials were able to catch two in the area of the attack on Tuesday but, after comparing DNA from swabs obtained from the woman's wounds and analyzed by a forensics lab, they determined that neither one of the bears were a match, CNN noted.
If they do come across the offending creature, it will be euthanized "in the interest of public safety," Foy said.
"This was an unprovoked, aggressive attack," he added. "It's likely she was looked at as prey."
Black bear attacks in California are rare but when they do occur, they are typically defensive in nature, the California Fish and Wildlife Department said on its website. This is usually because the bear has been startled or is defending cubs.
"However, bears accustomed to people may become too bold and act aggressively," the website noted.
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