Heart-stopping moment nine-year-old girl and her terrified mom come face-to-face with mountain lion after it chased their pets toward house

Frightening security video captured the moment a wild cougar ran into a Washington state family's yard, coming within feet of residents.

The incident happened on Saturday, when members of the Havener family were outside in their yard soaking in the spring weather.

Sitting on their back patio, April and her husband, Greg, were joined by their nine-year-old daughter and two other family members - before coming face-to face with the carnivorous cat.

The family's regular cat, Tuxie, was also in the area - and was the first to encounter the uninvited guest.

He can be seen darting away from the cougar in the heart-pounding clip, before eventually leading it to the family.

Frightening security video captured the moment a wild cougar ran into a Washington state family's yard, coming within feet of the residents. The incident happened on Saturday when members of the Havener family were outside in their yard, enjoying the spring weather

Footage from a camera over the family's backyard caught the massive cougar running out of nearby woods before suddenly chasing the family's two cats. One bore the brunt of the bigger cat's interest, leading it on a chase to the patio around the corner

'I think it was just as shocked by seeing us as we were shocked by seeing it,' April, seen clenching her pet puppy during the ordeal, told KOMO-TV on Tuesday. 

'As I came around the car, it was way bigger than I expected,' her husband added, after coming within inches of the mountain lion as he washed his car.

'It was not a bobcat. It took me a few seconds to realize,' he said, citing the animal's impressive stature, weighing 220 pounds when fully grown.

'This is very large. It's a cougar,' he remembered telling himself - shortly after his wife fled.

 'We all went our separate ways and left it at that,' he joked of how all five ended up inside the Monroe residence unscathed, with their pets as well.

The footage, recorded from two different vantage points from the family's security cameras, tells the rest of the tale, and how the family was stationed at the back of the house when the animal arrived.

Footage from a camera over the family's backyard captured the massive cougar running out of the nearby woods before suddenly chasing the family's two cats.

Tuxie bore the brunt of the bigger cat's interest, leading it on a chase to the patio around the corner.

There, April Havener (obscured by the umbrella) was seated with her daughter (seen in pink) and two other relatives 

They quickly came face to face with the more than 200-pound apex predator, which is a rare sight in the region

Everyone fled, leaving Greg behind with the beast, which he missed due to his car obscuring his line of sight

April, meanwhile, frantically fled with the family's new puppy in her arms. Her daughter and other relatives rushed inside seconds before

'As I came around the car, it was way bigger than I expected,' Greg, a farmer, said after coming within inches of the mountain lion while washing his car

'I think it was just as shocked by seeing us as we were shocked by seeing it,' April, seen clenching her pet puppy during the ordeal, added in an interview with KOMO-TV Tuesday, after all escaped unscathed

Like his sibling, the cat got away - at the expense of April and others seated in the outdoor area.

Greg added to KING-TV, 'All of a sudden this whirlwind shows up in the middle of us.'

This caught his family by surprise - with April seen taking several seconds to recognize the gravity of the situation. Her daughter, meanwhile, is quick to dart away.

'My cat is walking along minding his own business,' Greg said of the now-viral footage.

'The cougar comes running out covers the whole yard and here we all are hanging out and they show up right in the middle of all of us.'

Greg was on the other side of the family's car, he explained, with the video showing him express surprise by his family's sudden reaction.

Not realizing right away the animal was a mountain lion, he mistook it for a bobcat, he said, citing how cougars, while not unheard of, are extremely rare in the region.

'My cat is walking along minding his own business,' Greg said of the footage. 'The cougar comes running out covers the whole yard and here we all are hanging out and they show up right in the middle of all of us.' The cats that attracted the cougar's attention is seen here

He added the incident took them all by surprise, telling the station, 'We couldn't even process what happened until afterwards'

As his wife and daughter ran inside with their new puppy, he stayed put - but not after the North American panther locked eyes with his beloved and offspring, 

'That was probably the scariest moment in the video,' he said Tuesday.

 '[B]ecause you see it turn and it locks eyes with them and we don't know what it was thinking.'

He said the incident took them all by surprise, telling the station, 'We couldn't even process what happened until afterwards.

'We went and looked at the video, and the different angles and saw what everybody was doing, and then I started worrying about the kids in the yard playing in the future, and if it would show up again.'

As of Tuesday, the uninvited guest has not made a reappearance, reports indicate - as cougar attacks on humans are considered extremely rare in western Washington, but not out of the ordinary.

Back in February, a cougar attacked a group of five cyclist on a trail near Fall City, a 30-minute drive away.

That attack saw a 60-year-old woman taken to a hospital with serious injuries to her face, neck and jaw, which she somehow survived.    

In July 2023, an eight-year-old was attacked by a mountain lion in Olympic National Park in Los Angeles while camping.

In that particular case, the National Park Service said the cougar halted its attack after the child’s mother screamed and yelled in a successful attempt to scare it away. 

Officials said the child only suffered minor injuries as a result of that incident, which occurred about five years prior to the region's last fatal cougar attack.

That saw two mountain bikers mauled by the apex predator near North Bend in May 2018, and 32-year-old S.J. Brooks.

His friend, 31-year-old Isaac Sederbaum, survived with serious injuries.