A cougar attacked a 9-year-old girl who was playing hide-and-seek at a church camp in Washington state, seriously wounding her.
The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife says Lily A. Kryzhanivskyy and two other children were playing in the woods Saturday at the camp near the small town of Fruitland.
She jumped out to surprise her friends when the cougar attacked. Adults rushed to help and found the girl covered in blood.
“When I got here, she was under the tree. I thought she was dead. She’s … covered in blood basically,” said Ivan Zhuk, one of her rescuers.
She was airlifted to a hospital, where she had surgery for multiple wounds to her head and upper body.
“It just happened so quickly that there’s nothing that she could have done to prevent it,” said Staci Lehman, with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.
The wildlife agency says Lily was released from the intensive care unit Monday and remains hospitalized in stable condition. The young male cougar that attacked her was killed.