(RNN) - A Georgia woman recently fought off a wild bobcat, killing the rabid animal with her bare hands after it attacked her.
She told a local newspaper her thinking was: "Not today."
DeDe Phillips, a 46-year-old grandmother, told the Athens Banner-Herald she was in her yard in the mid-evening when she saw the cat, which suddenly "took two steps and was on top of me."
She said it came for her face.
The paper reported that, despite a broken finger and bite and claw wounds all over her body, she "took it straight to the ground" and "started inching my hands up its throat."
"I thought, 'Not today.' There was no way I was going to die," Phillips told the paper.
As it happens, she said her father-in-law used to be a bobcat trapper. She said she knew that they "go for your jugular."
"I'm very lucky," she said.
Phillips has now begun getting rabies shots, according to the paper.
A crowdfunding page for her medical expenses has been set up by a cousin. The page says Phillips needs four more rounds of shots, and each round can cost $10,000.
It also says the attack has left her with limited use of her hands.
"She is a lady who would give you the shirt off her back and will drop whatever she is doing to come help!" the page says. "She loves hard and is one heck of a woman!"
They're looking to raise $20,000, and so far have raised more than $7,700.
One commenter on the funding page noted: "That bobcat found a tiger of a woman!!! Get well soon!!"
Copyright 2018 Raycom News Network. All rights reserved.
