A 54-year-old "brave" Indian widow survived a leopard attack by killing the deadly animal with a sickle after a terrifying 30-minute struggle on Sunday, a doctor said Wednesday. The vicious attack left her with fractures, swelling, scratches and cuts to her skull which required 50 stitches.
Kamla Devi, a widow and mother of one, was walking back home through a field in the village of Koti Badma, in the Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand, when the leopard attacked about 10 a.m. Sunday, New York Daily News reported. Using only her work tool, she engaged in a dramatic battle with the animal.
Then, with deep scratches across her entire body and a fractured left hand, she managed to walk half a mile to a nearby village to seek help. She was rushed to a hospital in Srinagar on Monday. "At first, I was terrified. But, then I gathered my courage to fight back. I promised myself that this is not my last day," Devi was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. "I held the leopard with my hands, it then bit my hand and then left it. ... Both my hands are in immense pain and I am not able to lift them up," she said from a hospital bed in Srinagar.
Devi, from Koti Bodna in the Rudraprayag district of Uttarakhand, remains in the hospital in "stable" condition.
"She has compound fractures in her forearms and many, many bites and cuts to her skin but she is out of danger," P.D. Sharma, head doctor at the Government Medical College in the town of Srinagar where she is being treated, told NBC News. "She was fighting with the leopard for half an hour until she killed it with a farm implement called a darati, which is like a scythe. She was very brave."
Villagers found the leopard dead when they went to the scene of the reported attack, the doctor said. Although leopards are common in the area, they normally attack other animals rather than humans, he added.
Meanwhile, villagers are calling for Devi, who they've dubbed a "brave heart," to be honored for her bravery. "Kamla lost her husband nearly three decades ago," said village elder Jagdish Negi. "She is somehow managing her family through farming. Hers is a story which we have not heard before in Uttarakhand. We feel that the Uttarakhand government should honor her."
