Homeowner relives horror attack by mama black bear who knocked her to the ground and started biting her head in her own back yard: ‘I thought she was going to scalp me’

A homeowner has described her horror after she was attacked by a mother bear who started biting her head in her back yard in Pennsylvania. 

Lee Ann Galante thought the black bear was going to ‘scalp’ her during the vicious mauling at her home in Butler Township on Tuesday night. 

The 55-year-old was letting her Pomeranian Smokie outside for a walk. She heard a commotion and knew that the dog was in danger.

Galante then saw the silhouette of three bear cubs in a neighbor’s tree before their angry mother appeared on the scene.

‘I see this big bear just jump over the fence, and there’s Smokie. So I start screaming, “Smokie, Smokie”, she told local TV news station.

Lee Ann Galante thought the black bear was going to ‘scalp’ her during vicious mauling in the back garden of her home in Butler Township on Tuesday night. Pictured: Galante in hospital recalling the attack

The 55-year-old was letting her dog Smokie outside for a walk. She heard a commotion and knew that the Pomeranian was in danger

Galante said the bear then charged at her and knocked her to the ground. 

‘She came up behind me and she pushed me down, and my face went smack right into our cement,’ Galante said in an emotional interview from her hospital bed, displaying cuts to her nose and just above her lip.

‘Then she got me by the back of the head and she was pulling so hard on it I thought I was going to get scalped,’ she added.

Galante said the bear kept switching her focus from her to her eight-pound Pomeranian and noted that her arm was bitten during the attack. 

‘She was very very powerful and very very angry,’ Galante told CBS News. 

Galante and Smokie managed to return to their home from a back deck where she crawled to a phone and dialed 911.

Galante was hospitalized and received dozens of surgical staples to the back of her head.

‘She has a fair amount of puncture wounds on the back of her neck, on her arm itself and pretty significant tears and lacerations across her scalp. And she also has several broken bones of her nose and her face,’ said AHN trauma surgeon Dr. Jennifer Chen. 

The mother bear and her three cubs were located in a tree in the area following the attack.

Galante’s back garden. Galante then saw the silhouette of three bear cubs in a neighbor’s tree before their angry mother appeared on the scene

One of the bears in a tree after the attack. The mother bear continued to be aggressive and was euthanized by the Pennsylvania Game Commission. The cubs were tranquilized and they are expected to be released in an unknown location

The mother bear continued to be aggressive and was euthanized by the Pennsylvania Game Commission.

The cubs were tranquilized and they are expected to be released in an unknown location.

The Game Commission said the bear was likely being protective of her cubs and hungry. 

One of her neighbours, Michael Vero, said it ‘was nerve-wracking to hear her screaming’ during the attack, adding that bears had been in the area for a few weeks and he had been concerned for the safety of his children.

‘I was on edge then; now that they’re out of here, it makes me feel a little better,’ he said. 

Black bears can weigh up to 600 pounds and they are rarely aggressive towards people. 

Pennsylvania’s black bear population has increased from around 4,000 in the 1970s to around 18,000, according to the Pennsylvania Game Commission.