Georgetown, Calif. – The terrifying power of nature was on full display in this rural northern California town Saturday, as a mountain lion launched a brutal attack on two brothers, leaving one lifeless and the other horrifically injured in a confrontation straight from a horror film.
Authorities received a frantic call around 1pm from the younger brother, just 18 years old, alerting them that a ferocious mountain lion had pounced on him and his 21-year-old sibling while they were scouring the dense Georgetown wilderness for shed antlers.
Deputies raced to the isolated, densely-wooded scene of the big cat’s carnage. There, they found the teenage caller with grotesque facial injuries from the lion’s savage onslaught. But in a far more chilling discovery just 15 minutes later, they happened upon the lifeless body of the elder brother – with the bloodthirsty mountain lion still perched atop its prey, unrepentant in its vicious kill.
Fearing for their own safety against nature’s apex predator, the deputies were forced to discharged their firearms to scare off the lion. While the extreme measure worked in dispersing the beast from its grisly massacre, the mighty mountain lion has now gone into hiding, prompting an intensive manhunt by wildlife wardens desperate to locate and subdue the man-eater before it strikes again.
Fatal mountain lion attacks are extremely uncommon in California, with the last recorded incident a sickening mauling in 2004 in Orange County, according to state wildlife officials. Yet the department still warns that the powerful cats are formidable and to be given an extremely wide berth if encountered in the wild.
For the tiny, closeknitGeorgetown community, the brutal lion attack has sparked widespread panic and sorrow. “It’s an absolutely devastating tragedy, those poor young brothers were just out enjoying nature,” said family friend Karen Powell, her voice trembling. “We’re all praying for their loved ones…and that authorities can get a handle on this dangerous situation before the unthinkable happens again.”
As the manhunt intensifies and officials investigate how such an unforeseeable massacre could have unfolded, a dark cloud of heartbreak and fear has descended over this El Dorado County hamlet following an up-close reminder of the wilds’ indiscriminate, remorseless savagery when man and beast’s paths fatefully cross.
