Child hospitalized after San Mateo County mountain lion attack

HALF MOON BAY — A child was taken to a trauma center Tuesday after being attacked by a mountain lion in rural Northern California, authorities said.

The attack was reported shortly before 7 p.m. on Tunitas Creek Road in an unincorporated area of San Mateo County, the Sheriff's Department said.

The area is south of Half Moon Bay.

The victim was conscious while being taken to the hospital but there was no immediate word on the child's condition.

Other details weren't immediately released.

The California Department of Fish and Wildlife was investigating the attack.

Mountain lion attacks on humans are rare. Around 20 confirmed attacks have occurred in California in more than a century of record-keeping, according to the Department of Fish and Wildlife.

Last September, a 7-year-old boy was bitten by a mountain lion while walking with his father around dusk in a park near Santa Clarita in Southern California. The father scared the animal away and the child was treated for relatively minor wounds.