A mother was forced to listen helplessly on the phone as her teenage daughter was mauled and eaten alive by a bear during a prolonged and savage attack.
Over the course of three separate phone calls, 19-year-old Olga Moskalyova called her mother in desperation and agony while a bear and her cubs devoured her.
In August 2011, the teen was hiking with her stepfather Igor Tsyganenkov to retrieve a fishing rod he had left by a river in eastern Siberia, Russia.
Bears soon stumbled upon the duo. Olga watched from tall grass and reeds as her stepfather was overpowered by one of the bears and killed when its neck was broken and skull smashed in.
The terrified teenager ran for 70 yards before the bear caught her, grabbing her by the leg. Over the next hour, she made three terrified phone calls to her mother, Tatiana.
In the first call, she began with six haunting words: “Mum, the bear is eating me!” She continued: “Mum, it’s such agony. Mum, help!”
At first, Tatiana thought her daughter was joking. Months after the 2011 attack, she told the Daily Mail she quickly realised this was not the case. She said: “But then I heard the real horror and pain in Olga’s voice, and the sounds of a bear growling and chewing. I could have died then and there from shock.”
Olga, a trainee psychologist at the time, managed to call her mum a few more times while being mauled and eaten. Unaware her husband was already dead, Tatiana tried to call Igor to no avail. She then contacted police and relatives in the village of Termalniy, near Petropavlovsk Kamchatskiy, in eastern Siberia.
She pleaded with them to head straight to the river to investigate and try to save her family. By Olga’s second phone call, she was noticeably weaker. She revealed: “Mum, the bears are back. She came back and brought her three babies. They’re... eating me.”
An hour after her first call, Olga rang again, seeming to know her death was imminent. The bears had left her, and she said: “Mum, it’s not hurting any more. I don’t feel the pain. Forgive me for everything, I love you so much.”
Just 30 minutes later, Igor’s brother Andrei arrived with police and found the mother bear still eating his body. Olga, badly mauled, was also dead.
At the time, the deaths marked a surge in bear attacks across Russia, with hungry animals venturing into areas once their habitat but now taken over by humans. Emergency services sent six hunters to kill the mother bear and her three cubs.
Describing her daughter, Tatiana added: “My daughter was such fun. She was so cheerful, friendly and warm. She had graduated from music school, and just days before the bear attack she got her driving licence.”
