Having the right choice of music on your phone could save your life. That’s the lesson learned after a Canadian woman used a Metallica song to scare off a wild cougar.

The incident occurred just outside of Duncan, British Columbia. Dee Gallant was taking her dog for a walk last week when she noticed they were not alone. “I just had the feeling I was being watched,” she told Victoria News. “I looked over to the right and there he was.”

The cougar stood about 50 feet away and was slowly creeping towards Gallant. The woman was not initially frightened, but rather excited by seeing the animal. “I remember thinking ‘cool that's a cougar,’” she explained to KelownaNow. “Then it was ‘why is it still there?,’ before turning into ‘oh my god it’s coming toward me; I need to make it stop.”

Gallant’s first move was to yell at the animal. This caused it to pause momentarily, but did not scare the cougar away. Searching for what to do, an idea popped in her head.

"I quickly rifled through my iTunes and found Metallica 'Don't Tread On Me'," Gallant said. "I thought it was the noisiest thing on my phone that would probably scare it. That was also the message I wanted to convey to the cougar.”

Listen to Metallica Perform 'Don't Tread On Me'

Amazingly, her plan worked. “As soon as the first notes blared out, it ran into the bush.” Gallant says she's eternally grateful for Metallica and their powerful metal sound. "I would love to contact them some day and tell James Hetfield that he saved my life," she mused.

This isn't the first time Metallica's music has been used in unorthodox ways. The U.S. military memorably employed the band's songs as part of their so-called "enhanced interrogation techniques."


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