“I got attacked”: 911 calls detail response to fatal cougar attack

SEATTLE — Emergency call recordings about a fatal cougar attack in Washington state Saturday detail how a dispatcher calmly struggled to figure out where it occurred and how worried the surviving victim was about his friend. Isaac Sederbaum was mountain biking with friend S.J. Brooks on logging roads in the Cascade Mountain foothills east of Seattle when they were attacked.

The cougar bit Sederbaum on the head before killing Brooks.

Officials said there was no indication that the victims taunted the big cat, CBS News correspondent DeMarco Morgan reports.

Badly bloodied, Sederbaum got on his bike and rode to where he could get a cellphone signal. The first calls dropped.

But he eventually told dispatchers: “I got attacked by a mountain lion, my friend did too. I don’t know where I am.”

Sederbaum flagged down passing motorists who tried to describe the location.

He said he was worried about his friend.

Sgt. Ryan Abbott of the King County Sheriff’s Office said when rescuers arrived it took them about 30 minutes to locate Brooks, who was dead with the cougar standing on top of him.

“The deputies shot at him and spooked him, and he ran off,” he said.

It took several hours before authorities found the cougar up a tree 50 to 200 yards away and killed it. While the cougar was being hunted, rescuers had to wait to retrieve Brooks’ body.

Rich Beausoleil, the state’s bear and cougar specialist, said it was only the second fatality in the state in the last 94 years. “But it’s one too many,” he said.