Cougar kills man outside Seattle and escapes into the forest -- first US mountain lion fatality in a decade

A mountain lion killed a Washington man and escaped into the forest, the New Tribune reports.

The incident happened just before noon on Saturday in rural King County, which is also home to Seattle.

The victim, who has not yet been identified, was mountain biking with another person when the killer cat attacked them. The survivor, a 31-year-old man, is in the hospital for treatment, KIRO 7 reports.

When authorities showed up they found the cougar standing over the body of the man it had killed. The cougar ran off, and is now being searched for by authorities.

Serious injuries from cougar attacks are extremely rare. This is the first fatality from an American cougar attack in the past decade. Among fatalities, victims are children.

Before today, there had not been a fatal attack by a mountain lion in Washington State in almost a century.