A 44 year-old mother from Canada was tragically mauled to death by a black bear outside her family’s cabin on Thursday while her horrified 9 year-old son looked on from inside the home. She was also on the phone with her father at the time the fatal bear attack occurred.

Daily Mail reported that Stephanie Blais died last week after a black bear attacked her outside her family’s cabin at McKie Lake, near Buffalo Narrows. Hubert Esquirol, Blais’ father, heard the attack take place over the phone.

“Stephanie and I were talking over her satellite phone,” he recalled. “She called me to tell me that the waterline hadn’t been working and that her husband had fixed it. She then told her son, Eli, to run inside and grab an antenna.”

These were the last words that Esquirol heard his daughter speak. Seconds later, all he heard was disturbing gurgling sounds.

“I stayed on the line for a few minutes before I hung up and tried calling again,” he said. “The sounds were very disturbing. An attack crossed my mind but attacks are one in a million.”

Blais’ husband Curtis finally called her worried father back less than ten minutes later to give him the news that no parent wants to hear.

“He called me and told me that Stephanie had been attacked by a bear. The bear wouldn’t let go so he shot the bear until it let go,” Esquirol said. “He then proceeded to give her CPR but she had no pulse.”

Eli, Blais’ son, witnessed the entire attack from inside the cabin.

Esquirol said that he was particularly shocked about the attack given the fact that bears have often been seen around the property before, yet they have never caused problems.

“We never leave any food around, we have never given them a reason to stay,” he explained. “There has never been any provoked bears or any that seemed angry. They would always run off.”

Esquirol, who had just been at the cabin a week before the mauling, said that he was told by a conservation officer that the attack on his daughter was unprovoked.

“Stephanie would have been in the bears’ sight. She had her back turned. She didn’t see it,” the grieving father said.

Since the bear’s stomach was full of berries, officers concluded that he was not hungry at the time of the attack. Esquirol praised his son-in-law Curtis for how he handled the situation.

“Curtis handled the situation extremely well,” Esquirol said. “It could have been so much worse. The children could have been near her at the time of the attack.”

A GoFundMe has since been raised for Blais’ husband and children that has raised over $46,000 at the time of this writing.

“Our Stephanie had a zeal for life next to no one else. She was the most loving and passionate mother, who always spoke of how blessed she was to be able to be home and raise her children,’ Blais’ cousin Jane Rusbridge wrote in the post.

“These were her most precious days,” Rusbridge added. “She was free spirited, and loved the earth. She shared this with anyone who crossed her path. Her joy, passion, love, compassion, wisdom and selflessness was felt by anyone who had the joy of meeting Stephanie.”