Mountain Lion Attacks Six-Year- Old Boy in Northern California

A six-year-old boy was attacked by a mountain lion in Northern California on Sunday.  Luckily, he escaped death as his father and another man were successful in driving away the animal.

The attack, which took place at a hiking trail at the Picchetti Ranch Open Space Preserve near the Silicon Valley city of Cupertino, left the boy with wounds and scratches on his head and neck.  He is recuperating from the injuries at the Santa Clara Valley Medical center, hospital spokeswoman Joy Alexiou said, reports NBC News.

The boy was with a group of 10 people on a hike in the preserve.  The boy's father said that his son was about 10 feet ahead of the group when a mountain lion came out of nowhere and attacked him.  He and another man in the group shouted and behaved aggressively toward the lion and succeeded in driving it away, reports NBC News.

Lt. Patrick Foy of California Department of Fish and Wildlife's law enforcement division said that such attacks are typical behavior of a mountain lion while hunting prey such as deer.

"It was an ambush type of attack,'' Foy said."They said it came out of nowhere.'', reports USA Today.

Foy said that the dress that the boy was wearing was sent to a lab for DNA analysis as the cat might have left some saliva on the boys' dress. If investigators are able to isolate the DNA from the saliva, it can be confirmed whether the lion which attacked the boy is any one of the lions that the department tracks. Other forensic techniques can also used be for this process, Foy said.

Foy added that if they were able to find the lion and confirm that it was the same one which attacked the boy, it would be killed in the interest of public safety and also to test for rabies, he said.