A 70-year-old hiker in Utah used a rock to fend off a mountain lion that had knocked him to the ground, according to state wildlife officials.
Evan Ray Nielsen had been walking through a grove of juniper trees in Diamond Fork Canyon during the early afternoon on April 27 when a cougar jumped at him, Utah Division of Wildlife Resources spokesman Scott Root told NBC's local affiliate KSL.com.
Nielsen then threw a rock at the cougar, scaring it away. He hiked down the canyon and drove away. He was later treated at Spanish Fork Hospital for lacerations on his arm and head, Root said.
Nielsen later told reporters the mountain lion "blindsided" him from his left side, saying he saw it out of the corner of his eye.
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"I put my arm up, but that's where the claws got me on this side," he said. "And I just went down the hill down there, quite a way because it's pretty steep. And I just rolled up like that and out of the corner of my eye I saw it going around. I just hit it with a rock and it took off."
Utah wildlife conservation officers deployed K-9 units to search for the cougar. They found Nielsen's cell phone and cougar tracks on a ridge line above where the phone was recovered, Root said.
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The search was called off Friday, with signs placed in the Diamond Fork area saying a mountain lion had been seen in the area.
"I don't know what happened to it, but it never really attacked me," Nielsen said. "It didn't act like it was going to bite me or do anything like that or anything. Nothing. I'm sure glad."
