Mountain Lion Victim To Have More Surgery
The man who was attacked by a mountain lion in California was scheduled to undergo about six hours of reconstructive surgery Wednesday.
As part of complex operation, doctors will take muscle tissue from Jim Hamm's back and will use it to patch an eight- by eight-inch section on his skull that was torn during the attack last week.
It's microsurgery doctors here say has a 98 per cent success rate, reports CBS News correspondent John Blackstone.
Surgeons at California Pacific Medical Center said Hamm, 70, was sitting up and talking Tuesday and that the antibiotics he was given seemed to be helping.
Hamm was transported to the San Francisco hospital in a medical plane Sunday night after he took a turn for the worse at an Arcata facility. He first underwent surgery Wednesday after a female mountain lion attacked him while he and his wife were hiking in Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, about 50 miles north of Eureka.
He owes his life to his wife, Nell, 65, reports . She thought the two of them were about to be eaten.
The mountain lion's "face was full of Jim's blood, and her ears folded in an attack position," Nell Hamm said.
She used a heavy tree branch to hit the big cat repeatedly.
"I just came down with everything I had, but the cat didn't even flinch. It didn't faze it," she said.
"It didn't care. You know, it just wanted to eat," Jim Hamm said in an interview Jan. 27, before he took a turn for the worse.
"I was crying and screaming, and I said, 'Honey, it's not working, it's not working and I don't know what to do,'" Nell Hamm recalled.
Then she rammed the log straight into the lions head.
"All I thought about is getting the cat to let go of Jim," she said.
That worked. The mountain lion did let go and walked away.
Game wardens later closed the park and shot and killed a pair of lions. Researchers identified one of them as the attacker.
If all goes well, reports Ryan, Hamm should be out of the hospital in a week — just in time to celebrate 50 years of marriage.