Dawn Manning Cougar Fighter

We as a family, as many people have already heard, have just gone through a very traumatic experience. Everything will be OK! I would like to say thanks for all the well wishes and offers of help. I feel it will be helpful to talk about it, so here it is.

On Wednesday Sept 2. We were on a family hike up Mt. Abercrombie which is just over the border in Washington State. This is an easy hike, ideal for kids.

We were in the sub alpine near the top, two hours from the trail head when Simon was attacked by a cougar. Dawn and Simon were about 50 meters behind Isabelle and I and our two dogs. Simon was immediately behind Dawn. The cat pounced on Simon and dragged him off the trail (holding him by the head), Dawn started screaming and was bashing the thing repeatedly with her water bottle. I heard the screams, I assumed it was a wasps nest they had stepped in, when we realised what was happening, we ran screaming towards the cougar. It had dropped Simon, and was standing about 3 meters away and then disappeared into the bush. Simon's face and Dawns hands were covered in blood. We wrapped a shirt around Simon's head and hiked full speed to the car, it took just over an hour. I carried Simon. He did not cry or complain once, he has been amazingly brave.

Dawn beat a cougar off with only a water bottle, amazing!

We then drove to Trail hospital where Simon was treated.

We are all traumatised by the experience, we seem fine until we talk about it. We breakdown when we do.