A woman has told how she thought she was “going to die” after her mother jumped over her garden fence, knocked her to the ground and began biting the back of her head.
Lee Ann Galanti thought the bear was going to “scalp her” during the attack that took place in the backyard of her home in Butler Township, Pennsylvania, on Tuesday evening.
The 55-year-old was letting her Pomeranian, named Smokey, out for a walk before the dog started making a noise.
Ms Gallant then looked up and saw the silhouette of three bear cubs in a neighbour's tree before their mother emerged “out of the darkness”.
“I saw this big bear jump over the fence, and there's Smokey. So I started screaming, 'Smokey, Smokey,'” she told local TV news station WPXI from Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh.
Ms Galanti said the bear then attacked her, slamming her face first into the concrete.
She added: “She bit the back of my head so hard that I thought she was going to scalp me.”
“I kept thinking: ‘I can't believe this is happening. This cannot happen. “I was attacked by a bear.”
“I thought, 'This is it, I'm going to die.'
Ms Gallant said the bear kept diverting its attention from her to her small dog.
At some point, the bear managed to get close to Smokey, before lunging at Ms Gallant, knocking her to the ground again and biting her left arm.
Ms Gallant said Smokey “kept distracting” the bear, adding: “I'm so grateful he wasn't really hurt.”
They eventually made it home before the dog's owner crawled to the phone and called emergency services.
Ms Gallant was taken to hospital where dozens of surgical staples were placed on the back of her head.
She also suffered a broken nose, cuts inside her mouth, cuts on her arm, and scratches everywhere.
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The bear was “very aggressive and very strong,” Gallant said, adding: “It was terrible.”
Police said the mother bear and her three cubs were found in a tree in the area immediately after the attack.
“The female bear continued her aggression,” officers added, prompting the Pennsylvania Game Commission to euthanize her.
The cubs are expected to be released at an undisclosed location after the Game Commission calmed them down.
Ms Galanti said that weeks before the attack, her neighbors had captured images of a mother bear and her cubs on their home cameras, and watched the animals arrive at a bird feeder.
But the bears have not been seen since.
Michael Ferro, one of Galante's neighbors, said it was “sad to hear her scream” during the attack.
He said bears had been in the area for a few weeks, and he was nervous for his children's safety.
“I was on edge at the time, and now that they're out of here, it makes me feel a little better,” he said.
