Succession actor Crystal Finn had to receive hospital treatment after being bitten by an otter during a river swim in northern California.
Finn is among the latest victims in a string of extremely rare otter attacks.
Finn played ATN producer Lauren Pawson in the hit HBO drama’s season four episode “America Decides” opposite Matthew Macfadyen’s Tom Wambsgans.
“I felt something on my backside and on my leg,” Finn, who was attacked while swimming in the Feather River near Plumas National Forest in July, told the San Francisco Chronicle.
“I started looking around and yelling out and [the otters] popped up right in front of me. Then they dove down and started going at me again.”
Finn, who also recently performed alongside Will & Grace star Debra Messing in the Broadway play Birthday Candles, received treatment for bite injuries at Tahoe Forest Hospital in Truckee.
“I could see the bites on my legs and knew I had been bitten on my butt – that one was the worst, but I couldn’t see it,” she said. “The bites really hurt.”
Crystal Finn— (Getty Images)
She added that she didn’t see the otters in the part of the river she was swimming in; however, would not have anticipated an attack if she had.
“If I had seen them, I don’t think it would have given me pause,” she said. “I would have thought, ‘Oh those cute river otters.’”
The news comes after a woman in Montana received “more stitches in my body than I can count” after being attacked by otters while celebrating her birthday on the Jefferson River.
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Jen Royce called the otter, which left her with lacerations in both ears, arms, hands, legs, and one ankle, “vicious and relentless”. She was eventually airlifted to hospital. Two of Royce’s friends, whom she was with at the time, also received lesser injuries.
Dr Martin Rosengreen, a doctor at Tahoe Forest Hospital, told the Chronicle that he and his colleagues had never seen an otter attack victim until this summer when they received two patients within days of each other.
“After the first otter attack I thought, ‘Wow that was kind of special’ and then two days later there was another one,” he said.
The Chronicle reports that Finn’s ordeal was likely due to heavy rains, which have elevated the Feather River to its highest level in decades.
