Show caption A wild bobcat in the Florida wetlands. DeDe Phillips of Hart county, survived an attack by a bobcat in Georgia by strangling the animal. Photograph: Alamy Stock Photo Georgia US woman fights off rabid bobcat, strangling it with bare hands ‘I thought, not today … there was no way I was going to die’ says Georgia grandmother who strangled animal to death

Associated Press in Hartwell, Georgia Sun 17 Jun 2018 19.17 BST Share on Facebook

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A 46-year-old grandmother strangled a rabid bobcat to death after the animal attacked her in her front yard in north-eastern Georgia.

The Athens-Banner Herald reported that DeDe Phillips of Hart county had gone outside on 7 June to take a picture when the bobcat lunged at her.

“My neighbor’s dog was barking and it drew my attention,” she said. “I saw the cat and I took a picture. The cat took two steps and was on top of me … It came for my face.”

Phillips said she grew up in the country, where her father-in-law was once a trapper of bobcats. As a result, she knew something about the animal’s behavior and how to fight back.

“I thought, ‘not today’,” she told the newspaper. “There was no way I was going to die.”

She grabbed the cat by its throat and didn’t let go. She was afraid of calling for help, she said, because her five-year-old granddaughter was in the house.

“Once I got him where he wasn’t moving,” she said, “I started screaming for my daughter-in-law to call 911.”

Her son arrived with a gun, she said, but she didn’t want him to fire because she was so close. So he pulled a knife.



“My son stabbed it four or five times,” she said, “but it never budged so I knew it was completely dead.”

Phillips suffered a broken finger and several bite and claw wounds to her hands, arms, chest and legs. She was also treated for rabies.

