a 200-pound black bear attacked one of the woman's dogs just after midnight Wednesday on the back porch of her home about 15 miles west of Missoula.
When the woman, whom police did not name, tried to separate the animals, the bear bit her in the leg.
Maricelli says the woman reached for the nearest object at hand on the porch's railing - a large zucchini that she had harvested from her garden.
The woman flung the vegetable at the bear, striking it and forcing it to flee.
Truth is weirder than fiction. You couldn't put this in a work of fiction. The editor would never let it pass. "Not realistic!" he'd say.
That must have been one mean zucchini. Or the lady must have had great aim, on the snout, maybe? Or maybe it was rotten and the bear fled from the smell? Or just scared?
The details we'd like to know ...