Woman played dead during bear mauling at Valles Cadera

A marathon runner from Los Alamos played dead after getting mauled by a mother bear protecting one of her cubs Saturday in the Valles Caldera National Preserve. “I have a fractured right orbit from the mean left hook,” victim Karen Williams wrote in a Facebook post late Sunday night. “I’m missing parts of (my) eyelid and eyebrow, injury to the belly of my left bicep and a lot of punctures and lacerations. But I am alive.” The attack occurred in the mid-afternoon as Williams crossed Redondo Meadow about 23.5 miles into the marathon portion of the Valles Caldera Runs, she wrote. She was “coming up a little rise just before that terrible off-trail uphill,” Williams wrote. “There was some sort of seep or pond or mucky area at the top of that little hill and when I topped it a bear was charging me.” The bear was too close to do much of anything, she wrote. “She was about 15 (feet) away,” Williams wrote. “I raised my arms and yelled ‘NO!,’ then saw the cub. Then I was on my ass and being raked with claws and bitten. I cried out in pain and Mama bear did not like that so she hit me with a left hook and bit my neck and started to try to shake me. I rolled into a ball and played dead.” The cub had scampered up a tree, and the bear went to check its offspring...more