Girl 'plays dead' to survive brutal black bear attack in Florida

She was out walking her dog at 6pm when the bear suddenly appeared and tackled her. Pictured: Investigators at the scene of the attack

A 15-year-old girl who suffered horrific injuries after being attacked by a bear only survived because she remembered to 'play dead.'

Leah Reeder, 15, sustained deep bites and gouges to her legs, back, neck and face, after the attack on Sunday in Eastpoint, Franklin County, on Florida's panhandle.

She was out walking her dog at 6pm when the bear suddenly appeared and tackled her.

'I was listening to music and I heard my dog start barking. It was like a black blur,' she told Apalach Times from her hospital bed.

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She said the bear pushed her down, and she rolled on to her front side and started screaming.

'I guess nobody heard me,' she said.

'After I realized nobody was coming, I stopped screaming, and it started dragging me to the ditch.

'It lost its grip on my jacket and fell in the ditch and got up and ran away.'

Leah was able to stagger a block back to where she was staying with her father.

He found her in an immense state of distress and called 911 - poor weather conditions hampered a helicopter so she was transported via road.

Her mother Sheri Mann told the website: 'It bit her face open, and beside her ear on her scalp.'

'It was very, very bad.'

'Even as I sit here now, I can't believe it happened,' Mann said.

© Sheri Mann

Leah Reeder smiles after completing surgery Sunday night at Bay Medical Center in Panama Center.

'The bears are all over the place, and I know how hard I would fight to protect my kids, but a momma bear can do so much more damage than me with just one swipe.'

'She managed to crack a few smiles at me before she went in for surgery,' Mann told WMBB.

Wildlife officials are now looking for the bear.

They have using a dog to track the scent of the bear from the teen's clothes.

It was the third bear attack in the region this year.

Stan Kirkland, a spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, said FWC officials put in two live 'culvert' traps in the vicinity last night, and planned to install two more today, in an effort to catch bears and euthanize them.

'It's an assumption that it's an adult animal. That's all we know at this point,' said Kirkland. 'It is likely we will catch more than one bear.

'Public safety is paramount,' he said. 'We will likely euthanize any adult bears that we catch. One of the things we want to do is have the public know we have removed the bear.

'We will in all likelihood be removing numerous animals,' he said.

'We're an agency that is all about fish and wildlife, and we want a robust animal population. But when you have animals like that that can hurt someone, we're going to err on the side (of caution). We want the community to feel safe.'

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