Paul Paditto of the Department of Natural Resources said that she was just out of place when it happened because the bear was nearby with its three cubs.

In her call to 911, you can hear Karen Osborne’s haunting voice pleading for help while talking to a dispatcher on the phone. She managed to roll into a fetal position and dial 911 as she endured being mauled by a bear in her driveway near Frederick.

Osborne: A bear has attacked me. I’m laying in the driveway.

Dispatcher: What attacked you?

Osborne: The bear, and he is still here. Please help me now, hasten up! He fractured my legs and arms, so I cannot move as blood oozes from my damaged body. I think I am dying.

Below is the transcript of that emergency call:

Osborne: My God! Here he comes! Oh Lord please! My dear God no! He’s going to attack me again…please let him know how much I love my husband!

After hearing her dog barking outside Osborne went to investigate why he had been agitated only to find out later that it had cornered a cub in a tree and she came between it and a charging mother who did this four times towards her.

Disptacher: Where’s the bear now? Do you see it?

Osborne: It’s right behind me; snorting, stomping; kicking – like it’s fixin’ to attack

Even as they got closer, Osborne talked calmly with dispatchers.

Osborne: Oh my God, he’s circled around in front of me again. He’s trying to kill me. Please don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me here alone.

“My husband said the second time she called he heard the bear growling,” Mark Snuffins, who is Osborne’s son-in-law said. “We got lucky this could’ve ended up a lot worse,” he added.

The woman is still hospitalized, after receiving almost 80 stitches in wounds to her arm, scalp and torso, and suffering a broken arm.

Catching the bear was made easier by officials since it had been tagged with a radio collar earlier in the year and had previously caused problems at poultry farms in that neighborhood. They surmise that it may have been hit by a car as they found its right shoulder severely damaged.

They put down the bear. Although mother bear had three cubs they were all old enough to fend for themselves.

Osborne would be dead but for good luck on her side as well; she has puncture wounds from various parts of her body as well as multiple surgeries but will survive this.

There are now more than 2000 adult and sub-adult bears in western Maryland, thought that was a population that was near extinction a few decades ago. It is standard practice in Maryland that when you are attacked by a bear, it has to be killed.