A family of American black bears terrorized Pennsylvania’s Butler Township. For weeks, the family of black bears roamed around the town, and on April of this year, a woman, Lee Ann Galante was attacked.
Galante heard her little Pomeranian barking at three dark shades in her backyard. When she checked, she saw a family of three American black bears. The momma bear rushed towards Galante since she had her cubs with her.
As the bear was about to do something terrible, an unexpected hero appeared. Galante’s eight-pound Pomeranian bravely protected Galante and scared the bear away.
“Out of the dark, I see this big bear just jump over the fence, and there’s Smokie. So I start screaming, ‘Smokie, Smokie,’” 55-year-old woman shared.
“I didn’t want her to eat my baby and if she took one bite, he would be dead.”
“It was just so fast. She was so aggressive. She was all over me,” Galante shared with the local news agency. “She bites the back of my head so hard that I thought she was going to scalp me.”
“I just kept thinking, ‘I can’t believe this is happening. This can’t be happening. I’m being attacked by a bear.’ I thought, ‘This is it, I’m going to die.’” Galante recalled the terrible incident.
Lee Ann Galante is recalling the moment a black bear attacked her in her backyard north of Pittsburgh. https://t.co/b6xkGxRF1R pic.twitter.com/2MD3Q6z7Lo
— ABC30 Fresno (@ABC30) March 8, 2024
“She had me down. She bit my arm. She was on top of me,” the attacked woman shared, as she told that the bear was distracted between herself and her Pomeranian, Smokie.
Once the bear stepped back, she found the chance to pick her dog, and run back into her home.
“I thought ‘oh my God what if she’s right behind us,’” Galante explained.
“If we didn’t have that break from her, we’d both be dead I know it. You could just tell she was just ready to attack me again,” recovering woman added.
After Galante called the authorities, she was taken to Butler Memorial Hospital. As NBC reported, Galante had injuries as “dozens of staples on the back of her head, a broken nose, cuts inside her mouth, puncture wounds on her arm and scrapes and scratches all over.”
Only Channel 11 was there as Lee Ann Galante returned home on Thursday and reunited with her beloved dog, Smoky. https://t.co/q8hCJiIj6d
— WPXI (@WPXI) March 8, 2024
“I’m just so thankful [Smokie] wasn’t really hurt,” Galante says, crediting the courageous pup with saving her life. “He saved me and I saved him.” Galante shared after she recovered.
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