INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — A typical day of swimming turned dangerous for a Nevada woman when she was attacked by an aggressive otter in Lake Tahoe.
Lynnette Bellin, of Reno, was attacked on Sunday while she took a dip in the lake near Hidden Beach on the Nevada side of the Lake, KCRA reported. The ambush by the otter resulted in 38 stitches and rabies shots when she went to an area hospital, according to the television station.
“At first I thought it was a person pulling on me because it was so strong,” Bellin told the Reno Gazette Journal. “I haven’t seen anyone else out there swimming, so I wasn’t sure.
“And then I felt the teeth and claws, and it was relentless.”
Bellin, a swimming instructor, said the harder she fought the otter, the more aggressive the animal became. She told the newspaper that she picked up the otter and tried to throw it.
The otter then began to bite and claw her hands and face, the Gazette reported.
“My only thought was like, I got to get away from this. But it kept following me,” Bellin told KCRA. “I tried to swim away from it at one point and it was just attacking my feet.”
A Reno woman was attacked by an otter while swimming near Hidden Beach on the Nevada side of Lake Tahoe. Full coverage: https://t.co/juVxFqNVi0 pic.twitter.com/JseKinmhUw
— kcranews (@kcranews) September 1, 2026
Ironically, the name of Bellin’s swimming team when she was a child was the Otters, the Gazette reported. She is an avid open-water swimmer and recently returned from a vacation in Laguna Beach, California, where she swam with dolphins and even saw a baby shark.
The other eventually left Bellin alone, but she was worse for wear as she clambered up rocks at the shore.
“When I got out, like 10 feet up the rock, he was just circling the water,” she told KCRA. “I could just hear him breathing heavy and that’s when I was like, there’s no way I’m getting back in there, you know?”
Bellin owns ISR Reno Tahoe, a swim safety and rescue school for adults. She also teaches infant swim rescue classes in Reno and Incline Village, the Gazette reported.
“I even have a little toy otter I use in swim lessons with kids,” she told the newspaper. “I might not use that anymore.”
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