A woman is dead in what is believed to be the "first fatal elk attack" in Arizona, officials said Wednesday.
The Arizona Game and Fish Department said in an extended statement that the woman, who had not been identified in news reports at the time of this writing, died eight days after her initial hospitalization. On Oct. 26, the woman was trampled by an elk in the Pine Lake area of the Hualapai Mountains.
The woman’s husband said he came home that evening to find his wife “on the ground in the backyard with injuries consistent with being trampled by an elk,” with a bucket of spilled corn also found at the scene. Shortly after, the woman was taken to a Las Vegas hospital and put into a medically induced coma.
Per AZGFD officials, they were notified of the woman’s death on Nov. 3. In recent days, agency reps have been in the area warning residents to be mindful against interacting or feeding elk. The latter, in fact, is pegged as “one of the main sources of conflict” in these types of incidents.
Formally, the woman’s death has been declared accidental. Over the past five years, there have been five reported elk-related incidents in the state of Arizona area, though none of the other attacks were deadly.
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