 A 5-year-old girl was bitten and nearly dragged into the woods by a bear in Colorado early Sunday before her screaming mother spooked the animal and caused it to release the child. The child, identified by her father as Kimberly Cyr, had gone outside of her home in East Orchard Mesa in the predawn hours to investigate noises she believed were coming from a dog, her mother told authorities. The mother heard screams about 2:30 a.m. outside her home, which is above the Colorado River Corridor in Grand Junction, and went outside to investigate, according to a news release by Colorado Parks and Wildlife (CPW). Her mother told CPW officers she heard screaming and witnessed a large black bear dragging her daughter when she went to investigate. The mother said she then heard screaming and went out to find her daughter being dragged by a large black bear. Kimberly was initially rushed to St. Mary's Medical Center with serious injuries, but was later upgraded to fair condition, according to CPW. The girl underwent a nearly three-hour surgery to repair soft tissue injuries caused by the bear's teeth, according to Dr. Charles Breaux, the pediatric surgeon at St. Mary’s Medical Center in Grand Junction, Colorado. “No injuries to her brain or chest organs or abdominal organs and no fractures.” 
 
 Doctors cleaned and repaired the wounds — requiring more 77 stitches. Duane Cyr, Kimberly’s father, told ABC News that Kimberly was with her mother in the hospital and would be fine. If the bear is captured, it will be put down and a necropsy will be done to determine what happened, she said. Ferrell also told ABC News interactions between humans and bears in Colorado are "extremely rare." He said Kimberly will be "fine" after the attack happened at their D Road home around 2:30 a.m. Sunday.
– A 5-year-old girl in Colorado was seriously injured after going outside in the middle of the night to investigate noises she thought were coming from her dog and being attacked by a bear. Kimberly Cyr's father tells NBC 11 that the Grand Junction girl will be "fine" after the attack at around 2:30am Sunday. Her mother says that after she heard screaming, she went outside to see a black bear dragging the girl away. The mother says the bear dropped her daughter after she started screaming at it. Kimberly, whose condition was upgraded from serious to fair Sunday afternoon, needed 77 stitches but suffered no life-threatening injuries, a pediatric surgeon at St. Mary’s Medical Center tells Q13 Fox. Colorado Parks and Wildlife public information officer Rebecca Ferrell tells ABC that traps have been set for the bear. She says that if it is captured, it will be euthanized and a necropsy will be carried out to determine what happened. Ferrell says Kimberly may have startled the bear, since the animals are "not expecting people to be up and about" at that time of night. Ferrell says bear encounters in Colorado are unusual, but anyone who does encounter one should stay calm and make it aware that there are people near it. "Do not ever run from a bear, don't try and climb a tree, because a bear can do both of those things much faster than we can,” she says.