Special V Day For California Sweethearts

After battling a mountain lion, enduring multiple surgeries and spending weeks in the hospital, 70-year-old Jim Hamm was judged well enough to go home Wednesday - just in time to spend Valentine's Day with the love of his life.

That's Nell Hamm, 65, his wife and the woman who beat a mountain lion with a large branch, and stabbed it with a pen, until it finally released its jaws from her husband's head.

"I'm very thankful that Jim is alive," said Nell Hamm. "At the time of the attack, I couldn't see how he was going to survive this."

Jim and Nell Hamm have been married for 50 years and celebrated their wedding anniversary on Feb. 9th, while Jim was still in the hospital recuperating from numerous operations to repair the damage from the mountain lion.

Jim Hamm still has a long road to recovery - perhaps as much as a year.

He won't have to check back in the hospital but while on the mend at home in Fortuna, Calif., Hamm will be in physical therapy to improve the health of his arms and hands, which are still stiff and swollen.

Dr. Rudy Buntic, at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, says Jim Hamm had "made a steady improvement" since January 24th when a female mountain lion attacked him while he was hiking with his wife at Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park in Humboldt County, California.

Hamm was airlifted to the San Francisco hospital Jan. 28 after he showed signs of a dangerous blood infection at a facility in Arcata, where he first underwent surgery.

A team of surgeons led by Buntic moved muscle tissue taken from Hamm's leg to the back of his head, where he had suffered the most severe bites and scratches, then grafted skin on top.

Game wardens closed the park and shot and killed a pair of lions. Researchers identified one of them as the animal that attacked Hamm.

Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Nell Hamm talked about her husband's long, painful ordeal, in which doctors used muscle from his back to replace 48 square inches of scalp lost to the lion.

Jim has said that the mountain lion, roughly about 70 pounds, showed no fear when attacking him in what was the 16th mountain lion attack on a human in 117 years.

As he recuperated, Jim Hamm walked the halls of the hospital and read cards from well-wishers all over the country.

Mrs. Hamm acknowledges that it was scary, even after her husband was safe at the hospital.

"You can't see what I saw," said Mrs. Hamm, "and know a person is going to come through this thing."

"These are two amazing individuals," said Dr. Buntic, announcing that Jim Hamm would be able to go home on Valentine's Day – less than a month after the attack. "If this happened 25-hundred years ago, this would be a story of Greek mythology. These people fought off a lion. They are incredible people."

Mrs. Hamm remains modest about her bravery when it counted.

"I think with this both of us just fought for his life," she said. "You would have done the same if a loved one was there. You just do what you have to do."

"Knowing Jim," she added, "it won't be long before he's walking around the neighborhood."