A teenage girl managed to get a harrowing message to her mum while being attacked and eaten alive by a bear. Olga Moskalyova made three phone calls to her mother, who had to listen powerlessly to her 19-year-old daughter being killed in a slow and agonising attack. In a further devastating twist, the bear left Olga alone before returning with its cubs to finish her off.
The Tragic Incident
The tragedy occurred in August of 2011. The teenager, who had recently graduated from music school, had accompanied her stepfather Igor Tsyganenkov on a hike to collect a fishing rod Igor had left by the side of a river in eastern Siberia, Russia. They unintentionally caught a mother bear and her three cubs off guard, and it ended in horror. The bear immediately struck out at Igor, breaking his neck and smashing his skull as Olga watched in terror from the tall grass and reeds.
In a panic, she tried to run away and made it 70 yards before being caught by the bear, which latched onto her leg. Over the next hour, she made three phone calls to her mother, Tatiana.
Haunting Phone Calls
In the first phone 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 attack, she told the Daily Mail she quickly realised this wasn’t 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 the east of 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 her terrifying circumstances: “Mum, the bears are back. She came back and brought her three babies. They’re... eating me.” An hour after her first phone call, Olga again rang to speak to her mother, seeming to know her death was imminent. The bears had left her to her fate and Olga said: “Mum, it’s not hurting any more. I don’t feel the pain. Forgive me for everything, I love you so much.”
Aftermath
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, Igor and Olga’s deaths marked the latest in a surge of bear attacks happening throughout Russia, with hungry animals venturing to areas that were once their habitat but have since been taken over by humans. Though the bears’ hunger was not their fault, emergency services still sent six hunters to kill the mother bear and her three cubs.
Describing her daughter and all she had to live for, 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.”
