Otters 'Working Together' Attack Woman: 'I Felt This Bite on My Butt'

A woman in California has been attacked by a group of otters while swimming in a river, leading her to be rushed to the hospital for treatment.

The attack occurred in the Middle Fork of the Feather River in the Plumas National Forest, with two river otters suddenly biting her on the backside.

"I felt this bite on my butt, basically," Crystal Finn, a 41-year-old actor from New York City, told SFGate. "I cried out — I thought I must have hit a really sharp rock or something."

The animals then continued attacking her, biting her legs.

"I saw these three little heads pop up, right in front of me," Finn told local Mercury News. "But I was so disoriented. Seeing otters — initially, it just didn't add up."

"They were all coming for me," she said. "It seemed rather orchestrated. And as soon as I was out of there, they seemed happy to bob along, go on their way."

The culprits were river otters, which are freshwater-dwelling cousins of sea otters. River otters grow to around 3 to 4 feet long, with one-third of their body length being made up by their strong, muscular tails.

"They looked exactly as you would expect: very cute," Finn said. "They weren't baring their teeth or anything. But they seemed organized, like they were working together."

Finn made her way to land, kicking and screaming to deter further attacks, before hauling herself out of the water. She was then rushed to the emergency room at Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee.

"I was just in total shock," Finn said. "And I was definitely a little shaken thinking about what would have happened if my daughter and her cousins were with me. I was just about to bring them down to the area — it would have been a much different scenario."

This attack came only days after another swimmer, at Serene Lakes, around 100 miles south of where Finn had been swimming, was also attacked by otters. This attack was more severe, leaving them with 10 to 15 bites.

"Her wounds showed a little bit more of a defensive nature because they were going toward her face and she was trying to ward them off," Martin Rosengreen, the ER physician who treated Finn, said of the second attack victim, who he had also treated.

"A bite, especially an animal bite, can cause a lot of damage to nerves, arteries and veins, muscles, and tendons, so we had to do a really thorough irrigation of the wounds to make sure they didn't get infected," Rosengreen said.

Rosengreen was surprised to have treated two otter-related attack injuries in such quick succession, considering the rarity of attacks from these animals.

"I've never seen another otter attack in my practice, and none of my other colleagues have either," Rosengreen said. "It's very unusual."

Strangely, earlier this month, there was another otter attack in Montana's Jefferson River, where three women were bitten by river otters while inner tubing. One suffered such bad injuries to her hands, arms and legs that she needed evacuation via an emergency helicopter.

Despite these reports, otter attacks are rare, experts say.

"Otters are not prone to attacking people," Megan Isadore, executive director of the River Otter Ecology Project, told Mercury News. "It's very seldom, especially considering how many people are in the water, all over the country."

"When otters attack, it's most often because they have young nearby and feel threatened."

Otters stay with their mothers for many months, meaning that they create a tight bond.

"River otters are adorable. Beautiful, they're fun, they're playful," Isadore said. "However, they're also fierce predators. They have big teeth, they have big claws, and they have no fear of almost anything. They're wild animals, and it's always best to treat all wildlife with caution."

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