A Southern California teenager is receiving global attention after video went viral showing her shoving a mama bear off a wall using her bare hands as the predator threatened her dogs.
What are the details?
Hailey Morinico, 17, was captured on video rushing to save her family’s four pet dogs as a mother bear with two cubs in tow sat on a wall in the back yard of her Bradbury home, swatting at the pets as they barked.
The bear was seen in the footage with her two babies walking on top of the barrier when one of Morinico’s large dogs ran up barking at the bear. The mama bear swatted at the large dog, and Morinico sprang into action when the bear then started swatting at one of the smaller dogs.
“The dog that the bear grabbed, she’s the baby,” Morinico told KNBC-TV. “I have to protect the baby.”
The teen recalled to the outlet that after she pushed the bear the predator fell back, then “the dog she grabbed ran away and I pick up my other dog and I scram.”
The Daily Mail reported that in a TikTok video posted following the incident, Morinico said of the bear, “To be honest I don’t think I pushed her that hard, I just pushed her enough to lose her balance.”
The teen came out relatively unscathed from the incident, with a sprained finger and a scraped knee.
Morinico’s mother posted on Facebook that her daughter “‘Just saved our dog with super human strength,” describing the scene as, “for me one of the scariest moments in life.’
‘She sent the video on our family group chat and I just knew people would think it was crazy so I posted it. We did not expect this much of a reaction though!’ her cousin Stephanie Lopez Villalobos, who posted the video of the rescue, told the Daily Mail.
‘She’s a crazy brave 17 year old!’
NBC News noted that according to experts, “squaring off with a bear should be avoided by humans at all costs.”