A 36-year-old housekeeper at the Best Western Station House Inn in South Lake Tahoe reportedly was taken to the hospital last week after an encounter with a black bear.
At about 6:30 a.m. Friday, a guest at the inn - Placerville resident Anson Stidham - heard screaming outside his room as he prepared to go to work.
The AT&T technician said he went outside and saw the housekeeper backing away from a storage closet at the inn, followed by a bear that was standing on its hind legs and apparently had taken swipes at the woman.
"It caught her twice, one on each arm," Stidham said.
Stidham began making noise, and the bear hastily fled the area.
"It kind of ran right by me and took off," Stidham said.
The bear apparently had wandered into the open storage closet while the housekeeper was away, said South Lake Tahoe police Lt. Marty Hale.
When the housekeeper returned to the closet, she encountered the bear in close quarters, Hale said.
Stidham said he attended to the shocked woman's wounds - which included some "pretty big gouges" to the woman's left tricep - before emergency personnel arrived and took her to Barton Memorial Hospital.
The BEAR League and California Department of Fish and Game personnel were contacted about the incident but were unable to locate the bear, Hale said.
• Contact reporter Adam Jensen at ajensen@tahoedailytribune.com.