‘Ruthless? Is that really fair?’: Curley sizes up the Lake Tahoe otter that left a swimmer with 38 stitches

A swim instructor in Lake Tahoe said a river otter grabbed her by the leg, pulled her under, and left her needing 38 stitches, according to The New York Post. Lynnette Bellin, 51, was attacked near Hidden Beach on Sunday during her weekly open-water swim.

John Curley, host of “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio, had some questions … starting with the headline.

“Ruthless? Is that really fair to describe the otter as ruthless?” Curley said.

Bellin told CBS News the otter grabbed her leg and dragged her beneath the surface with so much force it felt like a human had pulled her down. Curley wasn’t buying it.

“She’s kind of fluffing that up a little bit for the show,” he said.

Curley finds the one word that convinces him

What did win Curley over was Bellin’s choice of language when describing her injuries. She said she had “scratches all over my body.”

“Now I know she’s not exaggerating, because she used the word scratches,” Curley said. “If you really wanted to shine it up, you would use lacerations or gashes.”

Bellin also said the otter circled below her after the attack, breathing heavily, while she climbed out onto a rock.

“I could just hear him breathing heavily, and that’s when I was like, there’s no way I’m getting back in there,” Bellin told CBS News.

Curley’s own otter problem

The story hit close to home. Curley said he has a lake on his property with an otter and does polar plunges in it, despite warnings from people around him.

“Somebody kept saying to me, ‘Hey, I wouldn’t go in the water with that thing,'” Curley said. “You go in there, and you’re just waiting for the thing to just grab your dingalinger, and then the next thing you know, you got scratches all over the place.”

He said the experience drove him to get a cold plunge setup without the otter.

“I was like, ‘Whatever, however it works, as long as there’s not an otter involved,'” he said.

Curley joked that he brings his dog Twiggy along to the water as an otter deterrent, and compared the arrangement to the classic TV show “Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom,” where host Marlin Perkins would narrate from the safety of a Jeep while sending his co-host Jim into danger.

“‘I’ll wait here in the Jeep while Jim goes ahead to see if the snake is poisonous,'” Curley said. “He’s always hanging out in the Jeep and making Jim go ahead.”

Bellin described Lake Tahoe as her “sanctuary” but said the attack has shaken her confidence in the water. She plans to return, but noted she’ll stick to different beaches, The New York Post reported.

Watch the full discussion in the video above.

Listen to “The John Curley Show” weekdays from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio 97.3 FM.

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