Woman fights off bear with laptop

When the chips are down, sometimes you have to improvise.

At least that’s what one California woman discovered this week when a bellicose bear painfully interrupted her outdoor evening nap.

The woman was catching forty winks in a backyard in Sierra Madre, Los Angeles County, Monday night when the bear attacked and bit her, the Mercury News reports.

Grabbing the nearest object to hand – her laptop – she hit the bear and  managed to scare it off – though it’s not clear whether the high-tech weapon was properly backed up.

The woman required hospital treatment after suffering a bite wound to a leg and scratches to an arm and a leg, according to Captain Patrick Foy of the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Using samples from the bite wound, Fish and Wildlife identified the attacker as a light-colored juvenile weighing about 125 pounds, although an idenitikit sketch of the furry suspect is yet to be released.

If found and matched by DNA with the animal who bit the victim, the bear will be euthanized.

“Once an animal starts to attack and bite a human being, they view humans as prey,”  Foy said. He also suggested that the bear in the Sierra Madre case may have viewed the woman as potential prey.

Police first learnt of the attack when they were contacted by hospital staff at 8:49 p.m., according to Sierra Madre police Sgt. Kyle Bailey.

Foy thinks that the woman fell asleep while working on the laptop which came to her rescue.

“The bear came to her side, began clawing at her arm and leg and bit her leg,” he said.

A Fish and Wildlife officer caught sight of the bear that night about 100 yards away, but the animal fled into the forest.

The last reported bear attack near the city was in 2019. In that incident, a man sleeping in the mountains was woken up by bear noises and suffered scratches to his face and arm after extending his hand so the bear could smell him.