The Colorado trail runner who killed a young mountain lion with his bare hands after it pounced on him survived by whacking the animal with a rock, wrestling the cat to the ground, and using his whole body to choke it to death, state park and wildlife officials said.

New accounts of what happened offer the first new details about the encounter that quickly became a viral, international story.



The man, who is in his thirties and has not been identified, left the hospital Tuesday morning and is "doing well considering his ordeal," Colorado Parks and Wildlife tweeted Wednesday.

He suffered bite wounds across his face and arms, and he was treated and tested for viruses and infections, including rabies.

"It's definitely not something you hear every day," Rebecca Ferrell, spokesperson for Colorado Parks and Wildlife, told BuzzFeed News Thursday. "We know it sounds hard to believe, but his survival instinct kicked in and he did what he had to do."

Ferrell went into more detail as to how the man, who she described as a "decent trail runner," was able to fend off the wild cat alone, in the middle of nowhere, and then drive himself to the hospital.

On Monday, the man had been running on West Ridge, a popular trail in Larimer County's Horsetooth Mountain Open Space, a 2,711-acre wildlife area near Fort Collins, when he heard a noise behind him.

He turned around and locked eyes with a young mountain lion near the trail, which had been stalking him, Ferrell said, noting that the cat was less than a year old and "was probably just learning how to hunt."

"He was a juvenile and didn't know the risk versus reward of attacking a human versus an animal," she said. "It was startled by something running and decided to pounce."

At first, the runner froze, then he started making a lot of noise, yelling and waving his arms above his head to try to scare off the wild animal.