8-Year-Old Hospitalized After ‘Extraordinarily Rare’ Cougar Attack During Washington State Camping Trip

"The cougar casually abandoned its attack after being yelled and screamed at by the child’s mother," the National Park Service said in a statement

A family camping trip turned into a nightmare when an 8-year-old child was attacked by a cougar in Washington’s Olympic National Park on Saturday evening, according to officials.

According to a news release from the National Park Service, the child and their mother were camping in the Heart O’ the Hills area at Lake Angeles when the cougar attacked.

“The cougar casually abandoned its attack after being yelled and screamed at by the child’s mother,” the Olympic National Park said, per the release. “Park personnel quickly responded and once the child’s medical condition was assessed and stabilized, the family was escorted back to the trailhead by park personnel."

Officials were notified of the incident at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, and the boy was hospitalized only for evaluation.

“Due to the extreme nature of this incident, we are closing the Lake Angeles area and several trails in the vicinity,” Olympic National Park Wildlife Biologist Tom Kay said, per the release. “Out of an abundance of caution, the Lake Angeles Trail, Heather Park Trail, Switchback Trail, and the entire Klahhane Ridge Trail are closed until further notice.”

Park officials and wildlife experts skilled at tracking cougars were dispatched “to the cougar’s last known point at Lake Angeles,” the park said in the release, adding that the animal “will be euthanized and removed from the park for a necropsy" if captured and killed.

The park noted that “cougars are rarely seen and attacks on humans are extraordinarily rare.”

"If you meet a cougar, it is important to not run because it could trigger the cougar’s attack instinct," the park service explained. "People should group together, appear as large as possible, keep eyes on the animal, make lots of noise and shout loudly."

As PEOPLE previously reported, a jogger from Asheville, North Carolina, also escaped a terrifying encounter — this time, with a mother bear — on July 7, according to multiple news outlets.

Bill Palas — a longtime resident of Asheville — was running the trails of Pisgah National Forest when he turned a corner and saw a cub, ABC 11 reported.

“When you see a cub like that, there’s usually a mom around," he recalled, per the outlet. "So, I go and I turn around real quick — and all of a sudden, there I see the momma bear.”

The outlet reported that Palas started to yell and wave his hands as the mother bear chased the cub up the hill.

Related: 47-Year-Old Woman Gored by Bison in Yellowstone National Park Sustains ‘Significant Injuries’

“After that initial encounter where she raked her claws against my face, and my arm went in her mouth, what went through my mind was, ‘This is it, the battle was going to go on,'” Palas told WCCB News.

“She stands up on her back legs, and here’s this head — her head must have been the size of a basketball — and it’s right here," Palas described, per ABC 11.

In another frightening incident, Lyudmila Emag from Brooklyn was attacked by a shark during Fourth of July weekend while swimming with two friends in the shallow waters of Fire Island, located near the south shore of Long Island.

Related: Woman Dead After ‘Apparent Bear Encounter’ Near Yellowstone National Park

“We started swimming across the shore, maybe like 30 yards from the shoreline. That’s when I felt like something grabbed me on my thigh,” the 47-year-old told PEOPLE. “I just screamed to my friends, ‘Something is biting me!’ And I felt like it was holding onto me for some time.”

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“I couldn’t touch the ground so I was still swimming with my right arm and I used my left hand to take it off me,” Emag recalled, noting that she struggled to unclench the shark’s jaw. “I'm not sure exactly if I went inside the shark’s mouth or not but I had some small cuts on my hand too. I didn’t even see it coming.”

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