A Reno swim instructor was attacked by a river otter Sunday morning while swimming along Lake Tahoe’s Nevada shoreline, leaving her with dozens of stitches and a course of rabies treatment.
Taking in her usual Sunday swim, Lynnette Bellin was between Hidden Beach and Incline Village when something grabbed a hold of her leg and pulled her under. She first thought it was another person but then felt the sharp pain of attacking teeth and claws.
“It was so powerful. It felt like it was a human,” Bellin told local outlets. When she turned, she saw the otter in the water and noticed it had zero plans of relenting.
Bellin fought the animal in the water and again after she climbed onto rocks, noting that the more she seemed to push it away, the more aggressive it became. She estimated the encounter lasted about five minutes, a timeline that no doubt felt much longer to the victim. Bellin was able to hoist herself onto the boulders and watched her attacker circle just below even after she was out of the water.
Injuries sustained during the attack included bites and claw marks to her face, arms, hands, and feet. In an interview with the Reno Gazette-Journal she said she received 22 stitches in her feet but subsequent interviews later pegged that total closer to 38. Given that at the time of treatment the otter had not been recovered, she received a round of rabies shots injected into the deepest wounds for good measure.
Our victim is no stranger to that stretch of lakeshore or the water in general. Bellin says she’s swum that very same route for more than 20 years and teaches infant self-rescue through ISR Reno Tahoe as her day job. Out of two decades worth of swims, she said she had never seen an otter in the lake before.
Sheriff’s deputies were dispatched to the area following the attack and performed a heavy-duty search in an attempt to locate the ornery otter.
"Washoe County Sheriff's Office deputies searched the area for the animal on Sunday, but as of this morning, the otter had not been located," NDOW spokesperson Kenzie Margiott said yesterday.
Margiott went on to say that while attacks on people are uncommon, they are native to the Tahoe basin and connecting waters, while noting that their numbers have been on the rise over the past 15 years.
Photo: Lynette Bellin
Otters can become aggressive if they feel threatened, are protecting young, or are sick, leaving officials to post warning signs near the site and advise the public to give otters space and leave the water if one approaches.
Bellin believes she may have been swimming closer to shore than usual to avoid boat traffic and that the otter could have been defending kits. She said Tahoe is her sanctuary and that she expects to swim there again, though probably not on that exact stretch until she heals.
