Metallica fan who scared off cougar gets phone call from James Hetfield

One Metallica fan used one of the band’s songs to combat a wild animal and it turns out, it actually worked. 

Now, the band have contacted her in honor of her viral story. 

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To backtrack, Canadian woman Dee Gallant discussed an encounter she had with a cougar and how she used heavy metal to save herself. 

Gallant was on a walk in a town in British Columbia with her dog when she encountered a wild cougar. 

“I looked over to the right and there it was,” she told Kelowna Now. “I couldn’t make it out at first and thought, ‘Oh that is a strange color, that’s not a tree.’” 

She said the animal started to approach her when she took out her phone to record the moment. 

“It was crouched down, doing that kind of prowl, predator walk they do – that was when I waved my arms and yelled, ‘Hey, you stop!’ and it did,” she said. 

You can see her video below. 

Her words of encouragement to the animal weren’t enough, so she did what she had to do — started blasting “Don’t Tread on Me” by Metallica. 

“I thought it was the noisiest thing on my phone that would probably scare it,” she continued. “That was also the message I wanted to convey to the cougar.” 

It turns out it worked as the cougar eventually left her alone and retreated into the woods. 

She said she would “love to contact (Metallica) someday and tell James Hetfield that he saved my life.” 

Now, Hetfield reached out to the woman and gave her a phone call. 

“I was a little bit lost for words,” Gallant told CTV News about the call. “It’s surreal how quickly it happened and how far it’s gone. The fact that he’s so down to earth and such a great person, I’m very pleased to find that out first-hand.” 

“If you had told the 18-year-old me that this would happen, I never would’ve believed it,” she added. “I would’ve just fallen out of my skin with excitement.”

After the phone call, Hatfield sent a selfie with the message: “Thought you might like some confirmation that it was me.”

You can listen to “Don’t Tread on Me” below and save it in case you ever need to fight off a wild cougar. 

What do you think of Metallica reaching out to the woman after her viral story? Sound off in the comments down below!

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