PROVINCETOWN, MASS. (WHDH) - A terrified woman says she was able to fend off a coyote with a stick during a tense 10-minute standoff with the animal on a Cape Cod beach on Thursday.

Video taken by a fisherman showed the coyote circling Marcy Sterlis on Race Point Beach in Provincetown as she swung the stick and yelled out for help.

“I just got up and I started screaming and pushing at him with the stick,” Sterlis said. “I was in a battle with this coyote for about 10 minutes.”

Sterlis says the coyote approached her after she got out of the water and that it refused to leave her alone.

“My voice is still horse from screaming yesterday morning,” Sterlis said. “That coyote was not giving up.”

A nearby fisherman noticed Sterlis was in need of help and tried to scare off the coyote.

“The captain took one of our oars and started slapping it on the side of the boat,” Andrew DeCarton recalled. “The noise really seemed to kind of deter him. You could tell that this animal was very hungry and very persistent.”

After the incident, Sterlis says she took some time to regroup before heading back out to another beach.

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