On February 4, 1907, something very bizarre occurred. The setting is Virginia, on a very cold evening. And it involves the James Ingram family, which included his wife and infant daughter. The wife’s name is never provided, which is suspicious. One source claims that the name of the child was…Alice. Let’s begin with the plans the Ingrams had on that night.
This is the basic beginning of the narrative. However, plantation? No, even though we’re in Virginia, the Ingrams owned a small farm. So, on the evening of February 4, a neighbor is hosting a dance. The Ingrams have obviously been invited, and they chose to attend the event. James was out on business that day, so the couple decided to meet at the fence, where Mrs. Ingram would hand the baby to her father. Then his wife would climb the fence, and walk to the neighbor’s house and attend the dance. This is a farm community, so a stroll to the neighbor’s house could involve somewhat of a walk. Now, there is an oddity here. Agreeing to meet at the fence makes perfect sense. And having the father take and carry the child, thereby relieving his wife, is understandable enough. However, what was agreed upon seems strange. It didn’t need to be agreed upon, it would happen in the normal course of events. So why should this be a specific part of the agreement made by James and his wife? At any rate, the basic narrative seems simple enough. But it would not remain that way. She indeed went to the fence, and that’s where everything went wrong. Did she forget Alice and have to run back the house? Did she drop Little Alice? No, something even more stunning. But as a slight digression, one should discuss the strange relationship between humans and animals.
Now it should be said that humans and bears have been in contact with one another for ages, or so it seems. Bears are ferocious and can attack for the slightest reason. But so too with humans. Many times, these encounters end up being tragic. Perhaps the best way to start is with a case, the first one I found in the media at any rate, that happened in 1784…
Remember that this is the 1790s, and the letter “f” is often used in the place of a letter “s”. So, one must exercise caution, as illustrated by a short account of a child eaten by a pig…
The parents’ reaction is somewhat disturbing…
It’s dark now, so they go home and leave the bear to finish off their son. Billy Leach’s son had the misfortune of being joined in the field by his armed neighbor heading out to murder bears. And seemingly, local bears could read this guy’s mind, and decided that a good defense is a good offence. To eat a child, it must have been a very large pig. But bitten on the neck?
…the dreaded, but thankfully very rare, Vampire Bear. And for some reason, the bear was still there next morning. I guess there’s no accounting for a Vampire Bear’s intelligence, or lack thereof. You would think that after a good meal, and being given all night to digest it, he would have moved on.
Then there’s the miraculous story of…
…Olga Gregorchuk. The tombstone reads:
BURIED HERE
ARE THE REMAINS OF
OLGA GREGORICZUK
WHO WAS EATEN BY A BEAR
AUGUST 30, 1929
Olga was born in 1922 to Fedor and Katerina Gregorchuk of Manitoba, Canada. She was watching over her younger brother Bill.
It was September 1929. The country was still very much underdeveloped. Settlers were isolated, and at an early age children had to assume responsibility. In assuming her responsibility, little seven-year-old Olga paid the supreme sacrifice. She was left to take care of the younger children while the parents were away from home reaping the grain on their small acreage in the bush".
They huddled in the safe corners, when they heard pounding on the door. Olga pushed the child under the bed. And all of a sudden they heard the door crash and "the big black sheep" appeared in the room. As the brute waddled into the small room, the little boy managed to dart past him and ran to the nearest neighbors. Olga attempted to ward off the beast with a broom.
The neighbors arrived, the bear disappeared into the bushes and what they saw was Olga's mutilated remains.
"And where is the other child?" said one.
"When I ran out," said the little boy, "I heard Olga's piercing cry."
"I can hear a child crying," said a woman.
There in the far corner under the bed was the boy.
This will remain a black Friday forever. "Yes, Olga saved her brother, but could not save herself: she was a brave little girl."
One report states that the only thing they found of Olga was her head. But was she eaten by a bear, or a big black sheep? And it will become clear later as we go on, that people have a habit of describing a bear as being a different kind of animal. In this case, a sheep, odd since they are not carnivores. But one might point out that…
…some wolves disguise themselves as sheep, and wolves certainly are carnivores.
On July 7, 1948, an unfortunate thing happened to…
…3-year old Carol Ann Pomeranky, who was cute as a button…
A posse? In this case the bear was seen, and did end up killing the three-year old girl. And the bear sure did a number on her. However, one may question whether she was being properly supervised…
That’s the basic story. However, another article makes a claim that reflects very badly on Carol’s mother…
There is also cause to question the responsibilty of the father…
And it would seem that the bear was found…
I wonder if they got the right bear, or just shot a bear they crossed paths with, and claimed it was the right bear. Well, if you found human remains in the bear’s belly, that would seal the deal. So, who is to blame? The bear, who behaved like a wild animal, or Mrs. Pomeranky, who saw the bear in the yard and ignored it? Or Mr. Pomeranky, who thought bears were not really a threat? But this kind of an event was noted to have been very rare…
Ruhl claimed this is the “the first instance in Michigan history in which a bear has killed a human.”
The Pomeranky case just goes to show that you are not safe on your porch…
Please remember that if you live in the woods, or even close to them, and you know that there are bears around, don’t let your baby play outside unsupervised, even if it just the porch. But in the child vs. bear paradigm, an excellent story appears in the Old Testament…
Let me explain…
From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some boys came out of the town and jeered at him. “Get out of here, baldy!” they said. “Get out of here, baldy!” He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the Lord. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the boys. And he went on to Mount Carmel and from there returned to Samaria.
One could postulate that what happened was that the two bears had cubs nearby. And I don’t know how two bears can kill forty-two people. You can only maul one ill-mannered, smart-mouthed kid at a time, and I would think that the others didn’t form a line waiting their turn to be killed. Darla said she would run away, citing that old joke:
Two men are running away from a Monster Bear who is chasing them. The one man shouts to the other man…you can’t unrun a bear! The other replies…I don’t have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you.
Darla’s very fast, and she swears she could outrun those forty-two boys. Of course, she’s too smart to mock a prophet like Elisha to begin with. This is just another story that raises concerns with the attitude of biblical writers…it seems highly unreasonable for God to sentence 42 boys to a horrible death because they poked fun at a prophet. Maybe send them to their rooms with no supper.
While we can’t believe the number forty-two, if subtracted two, we’d end up with one of most favorite numbers in the Bible. If we divided that by ten, we would get…
What kind of bear ignores a half-open Dutch oven? One who has determined that there’s nothing in it. It is odd that the bear avoided the food storage area, unless he already tried to get into it but couldn’t. That left four boys! And the surname…Mangels…is a strange coincidence.
If the bear wasn’t there for food, then what was its motive? It sounds more like the bear was unable to get whatever, if anything, was in the Dutch oven. So he tried the food stores, which he was unable to get into. This threw him into a violent fit and he took it out on the 42 -2 divided 10…boys.
Another tragedy…
Now, this is a somewhat strange story.
In other stories, the child is left unattended outside. But not in this case. The other children ran to a neighboring farm. And in this case, the bear actually broke down the door to get at the children. At least, I hope he had a search warrant.
So he returned to the scene of the crime. And this is 1929, so why are cops walking around with machine guns? That said, why did the bear eat the child to begin with? Was it a demented or deranged bear?
No, the bear was starving because he couldn’t find food as a result of forest fires. So under normal conditions, this probably would not have happened. I wonder what caused the fires? I’m sure the bear didn’t.
The theme of unsupervised children appeared in the case of the disappearance of five-year old Eddie Lipps in 1891…
So again, an unsupervised child. And yet, no bear was actually seen. Despite this fact…
…bear tracks do not prove that a bear was involved. It would appear that Eddie’s body was never found. However, he was collecting sap, and it is well known that bears like sap. However, clearly the bear has been included in the Eddie Lips story because, with no body being found, this is really a disappearance. He could have wandered off, or was kidnapped. The possibility of being kidnapped is something that will arise later.
Now for two-year old Peter Winch…
A close calI, for sure. And bears like blueberries, so it’s always possible that one would show up. Though I wonder how they knew the bear was female. Wait…
…that’s how. But there is another case where no bear was seen, and yet was blamed…
So, I think we’re talking about a…
…baby in a papoose. Suspending food, or possible food, from a tree is a measure campers take to avoid it being eaten by bears. Was it really a bear? What about a…
…Cougar? Mountain Lions are, of course dedicated carnivors, who are also excellent climbers. And a mother with hungry kittens would not hesitate to climb a …
…tree and grab a baby hanging there in a papoose. I wonder how many of the reported bear attacks, when the a bear wasn’t actually seen, could be due to mountain lions rather than bears. And while it is true that female bears will react violently to anyone who approaches her cubs, I’m sure a female cougar would do the same in the case of her kittens…
This is our mom, so you better not mess with us! And it’s not her fault if you leave a baby hanging from a tree in a papoose!
But there was another event that leaves one scratching one’s head because of the numbers involved. Yes, the strange case of the Porterfield Kids, who I like to call…the Porterfield Three…
I thought there were five. But yes, the bear and his victims…
The children in question would appear to be Mary, Willie, and Henry.
So here we have another example of that old-age question…how many kids can a bear kill at the same time? Either three, or forty-two, as the case may be. It was suggested that Henry had tried to fight the bear to save his siblings. Now for the spotlight!
After the bodies were found, John Weldon, a Maryland hunter, started on the trail of the bear, hunted him down and killed him in a hand-to-hand encounter, in which Weldon escaped without injury. Before starting out on the trail Weldon vowed to bring in the pelt of the bear, and he did. A bullet and some knife thrust settled the brute. The bear was a monster of his kind, the largest ever killed in those mountains.
Weldon and his hand-to-hand combat! Or would that be…hand-to-paw combat? The exact fate of the Porterfield Kids remains a mystery. Never leave the trail…you will wander into a world that is not your own.
Now for an event that involved…
…3-year-old Nicole Renaud.
So…she may have been attacked by a bear. Finding bear tracks nearby does not prove that a bear was involved. And more to the point, one might wonder whether little Nichole Renaud simply wandered into the forest and got lost…
Children camping in the forest walk off and get lost all the time, and you may be surprised just how far they can go, and how fast they can get there. This same thing happens every year to adults, such hunters, hikers, and campers, who are never seen again. It is not uncommon for people to find human bones in the national forests. The rule? Never leave the trail. Another rule is…always watch your kid, because he doesn’t know the rules.
Another story…
We can all agree that Jennie’s brother was a hero. But there is some disagreement about the details…
…so did the bear weigh 200 or 300 pounds? And was Jennie playing 100 or 300 yards from home. And here again is the question of supervision. If this kid was playing 300 yards from home…that seems like an insane distance. But even 100 yards from home is perhaps too far. It was a good thing that John was around with his father’s rifle. I have not been able to discover whether Jennie ultimately survived.
Another bear attack occurred In July 1977 in Regina, Canada, involving Alice Muser…
It would seem that the bear was too old to take care of itself anymore and attacked out of desperation. This was reported in 2008…
Indeed…
What happened?
Ok, that’s the basic story. And apparently, we’re dealing with a super-demented bear. Evan must not have been hurt very badly…
…or not. He certainly ended up better off than 10-year-old Chad Taskinen…
The scene was gruesome…
Chad’s wounds were extensive…
There was a lot of media coverage of Chad’s case, and he received a little financial help…
Interestingly, this isn’t the only instance where the victim was scalped…
…and, knowing the media, things became a little sensationalized…
We usually connect scalping with Native Americans…
But it was very real, just ask…
…Wiliam Thompson; Robert McGee; and Ralph Morrison. And clearly, you can survive being scalped. That said, there is one more instance involving a Scalping Bear. This involves…
…Grizzly Adams, famous for his taming of many kinds of wild animals, but in particular…grizzly bears. But he couldn’t tame all of them, and in 1855, he was attacked by a grizzly bear who ripped his scalp off. The wound was treated, but during a wrestling match with one of his grizzly bears, named General Fremont, Adam’s scalp was ripped off again. But he continued to wrestle bears, and eventually was left with exposed brain tissue.
But as bad as Chad’s wounds were, those of Cynthia Busel-Bacon, a 31-year-old geologist, were much worse…
…and that is an amazingly positive attitude, one that she seems to have had all her life…
Enter…
…Kevin Unruh was a Boy Scout, and was on a camping trip at the Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico…
It turns out that Kevin’s attack was the result of failing to deal with a dangerous situation…
Five bear attacks in only two weeks? This had a very predictable outcome…
…of course they talked to a lawyer. This happened before…
Of course…
they sued the Boy Scouts. They were, at least, highly neglectful, and at most, decided to let the bear attacks go on rather than doing anything about the problem.
On June 19, 2007…
…Sam Ives was killed by a bear…
So you’re not even safe in your own tent. The case also resulted in harsh criticism directed at the governmental agencies that were involved…
Now for a remarkable coincidence…
Two-year-old Nellie Harris…
So this one is a bit strange. Some bear is walking by, apparently not looking for trouble. Now this event happened on December 11, 1925. The bear sees Nellie playing in a box, so he pulls her out of it. Given the time of year…
…perhaps the bear thought the box was a Christmas present containing one of his favorite things. But seriously, what kind of box? Yes, a piano box. I will readily admit that an 800-pound bear is a very big bear. Perhaps the original plan was to have Nellie take piano lessons.
Sometimes these have kids inside.
Again…an unsupervised child in area where bears were known to live. The cabin was only…
…20 feet from dense woods. This makes it all the more important not to leave a child in a stroller outside the cabin.
Yes,
…so either…
…this bear was truly calm under fire, or the bear they killed wasn’t the bear in question. Ultimately, it is the parents who are to blame, not the bear. But a very important point was made about the dangers posed by bears…
Okay, people…lock up your birdseed.
Meet…
…2-year-old Daphne Jax. Have you ever seen such a cute kid? Well, Darla not included.
Good Heavens, what happened?
A bear walking away from a restroom. I didn’t know that bears are potty-trained. It seems to me that animal cruelty is what really lies at the bottom of this event. Blame the kids throwing bottles and rocks at the animal. It should have attacked its tormenters.
Air Force plane? Lots of fun, and perhaps they’re preparing Daphne for a career in the military…the recruits seem to getting younger and younger all the time. And she invented a new classification of bears…
The Minnesota Brown Icky Bear. Again, this probably wouldn’t have happened if the bear had not been attacked by kids. It’s a good thing there weren’t 42 kids involved.
Now for a case that is a tragedy in more ways than one. It involves…
…Valerie Theorot and her 10-month-old daughter…Adele Roesholt. The two had been in Yukon trapping animals with the baby’s father…Gjermund Roesholt. And in the wrong place at the right time…
This would not have occurred if the bear was healthy. And it is a sign of desperation if one resorts to eating a porcupine, which is essentially a mouthful of spikes.
Although the attacks by polar bears are rare, a tragic event did take place in July 2014…
…yes Horatio, not Shakespeare’s Horatio, obviously, no…Horatio Chapple. He took a trip to Svalbard, Norway. And although that sounds like an interesting vacation, it didn’t work out that way for him. But he wasn’t alone. In what reminds one of the Porterfield Three…
Horatio worked as a volunteer at the Spinal Injuries Unit in Salisbury. Being moved, he…
…he came up with the idea of creating a garden for Spinal Injury patents to leave the ward and enjoy nature…
Moving on to a very brave kid…
…eleven-year-old John Friestad.
It’s worth taking a look beyond stupidity…
Kodiak…now that’s a fitting name. You would think that once you left the stream, and we all know how much bears like fish, and arrived at the truck, the coast was clear. But apparently there was a bear lying in wait, planning to bushwhack our hapless outdoorsmen. Yet they managed to get into their truck before there was a problem. You would think that you would carry something like…bear spray. But that wouldn’t make sense. So, what would you do? Yes, what anybody would do…sit in the truck and light pieces of paper on fire. Who could possibly foresee the pending disaster? It all made so much sense. You light the inside of your truck on fire, give yourself second degree burns, and have to leave the truck where, or so we would expect, the bear is.
Excuse me! Couldn’t you have skipped the fire-thing and just let me eat you?
On July 3, 1955, a two-year-old baby strangely disappeared. It took place in the Kootenai Forest in Montana. The Mortimer Curtis family lived in a logging camp, where they had a tent. The family was having a picnic, and two of the older children were playing outside the family tent. Baby…
…Ida May, born March 19, 1953, was in the tent. Suddenly, the older children screamed, shouting about having seen a bear. Imagine that, finding a bear in the forest. Ida’s mother looked in the tent, finding that Ida was gone. Now the Curtis family was having a feud with a local bear…
The bear vs. the Curtis family tete-a-tete took place over a period of about a day and half. The hungry bear had been in the family tent, and knew that there was food there. And he took the bacon! What, no eggs? So when the Curtis children saw a bear, it was just another appearance of what was certainly the same bear. Now, that bear ran off, but Ida’s mother said something strange…
So we do we have a three-legged bear, or a bear carrying off Ida May Curtis? Perhaps our bear found a better meal than bacon. Ida’s mother did not claim that she saw the bear actually carrying the baby. But for Mrs. Curtis, this was the horrible crescendo of two days of the battle with a local bear. Now, it must be questioned whether the bear that Mrs. Curtis saw was the same bear. Apparently, running off on only three legs was something new that day, since if the other bear ran on three legs, it wouldn’t seem suspicious that he did on the day that Ida disappeared. But it is clear how this was interpreted…the bear ran off on three legs because he was carrying Ida with his other leg. That there we actually two bears was quickly noted. Sheriff Ray Frost…
Now there is some confusion about just who made the comments about the bear running on three legs…
Yes…
…these guys. But they had some help…
I sure hope no one broke out of prison while the dogs were busy looking for Little Ida May. But Mrs. Curtis made herself out to be rather bold…
Ah, yes…she actually chased the bear. The weather was cold, and the search had to be halted because of rain. In all fairness to those involved, and much to Mrs. Curtis’s chagrin, not everyone agreed with her…
So there were many involved who didn’t believe the claims of Mrs. Curtis. Ida was found lying down by the side of a creek about a quarter mile from the logging camp. And she was just fine. But what was the first thing she said?
Yes, that’s cute. But it doesn’t make for good apocrypha. Let’s try again…
Actually, there is something to be said for this explanation, and it does make sense…assuming that she actually said…bear, which I doubt. The most likely explanation is that Ida’s parents were being remiss, and did not keep an eye on her. Little kids will wander off if you don’t properly supervise them.
Anyone camping in the wilderness should do themselves a favor and always remember that a tent won’t stop a bear…
See!
Hey! Sometimes they keep cold beer in these.
Now for another hero story…
This was clearly a dangerous animal. But Vanja was a very brave young girl, saving her when the bear attacked. Sticks and stones may break my bones…unless you’re a bear. Of course, one may ask what steps were taken to protect the villagers if the bear was already terrorizing its inhabitants.
Fury struck when…
…six-year-old Elora Petrasek was killed by a bear, with her brother Luke Cenkus and her mother…
She was fond of the outdoors…hiking, swimming, bike riding, etc.
Doughnuts and honey buns? Did this happen in the wilderness, or at a 7-11? What is a bear’s favorite doughnut? A bear claw. Why is the bear crazed when it acts like a bear? But people did rise to the occasion when it came to Sue’s family…
And again…
…it seems that following some of these attacks, officials go looking for the bear, since the bear is almost never caught red-handed…red-pawed. This may have been the bear that attacked Elora, or it may not be. Of course, they don’t want to come back empty handed and say…we can’t the bear. So instead, you shoot the first bear you come across and say…this is probably the bear. And!
See! And now for…
…Daniel Anderson. Now, if it’s stupid to try to drive a bear away by setting your on fire, it seems equally strange that these people though that they could serenade the bear. It’s nice to know that the plan was not to kill the bear, if found. However…
They couldn’t find him, apparently. And some people are quite remarkable…
I wouldn’t have thought that bears are Anglicans.
…finding only tattered bits of clothing, with no body parts, seems odd. Either the girl was playing 200 yards from home, or the bear dragged her there.
I hope this wasn’t another case of small children playing unsupervised so far from home.
The fate of the death of 10-year-old Allan Baines in 1980…
It must be the right bear…since it was nearby. And what about…a short period time? The earlier article said the bear was shot 16 hours after Allan was attacked. Some might consider that amount as not being…a short period of time. And is it possible that within 16 hours, another bear could wandered into the area?
There does seem to be confusion about whether the bear they killed was the right bear.
I suppose that bears of that age can’t have similarly sized paws? And combine this with the shooting of a bear 16 hours later, and I get the impression that someone was covering up the fact that there was no way they killed the right bear.
When it comes to food, bears aren’t particularly picky…
I would have thought that everyone knows about keeping your garbage safe! And far as garbage dumps go, I thought Baines was fishing in a river.
Bears like fish, don’t they?
And time for a quiz! How many musicians can you find in the previous article cited above?
Three…Prince, the Police, and George boy…Boy George in reverse.
Now for a little story-telling…
So in this case, the human was able to climb a tree better than the bear.
You may own a ranch, but you are still pretty much living in the wilderness. This victim is an adult, and I warn you, you may find the following picture a bit disturbing. It even upset Darla…
Allena Hansen was mauled by a black bear on her ranch in the Sequoia Mountains, California, in 2008.
In the brutal attack she lost her nose, ears and 14 teeth.
"When the bear attacked me it just grabbed me by the ears and bit into my face and took me down," Hansen told the Independent in 2020. "So basically my face was ripped off."
She managed to fight it off thanks to the help of her two large dogs and by sticking her thumbnail in its eye.
"At the time I didn't have many options," she added. "It was either lie there and bleed out or get the hell out of there, so I left."
Allena had been walking her dogs that morning, when she was attacked. It is truly amazing that she was able to drive herself the local fire station. And many surgeries followed. Modern surgery techniques are marvelous indeed…
However, her case was far more complicated than it ever should have been…
Ms. Hansen stayed in the hospital for only one day while recovering from her most severe injuries. But she was left with a face held together by stitches and 14 missing teeth.
Her private health insurance at the time, Blue Cross, refused to cover anything they deemed wasn't "necessary" for Ms. Hansen's survival, which forced the woman's hand to pay for her treatments in a different way.
"I had to go on national television and prostitute myself ... be the freak of the week, you know," she said. "Fortunately, there were some very kind doctors who donated their services."
When estimating her medical bills in the last decade, Ms Hansen said she spent about $80,000 alone for her cosmetic surgery to make her "look human" again. Of that cost, insurance paid only about $10,000.
In total, Ms. Hansen says she's paid about $250,000 in medical bills from all the injuries she suffered, and continues to suffer, even though she was technically covered by a private health insurance company.
"It went through all of my retirement savings, my IRAs, my assets. I am now living on a social security pension. Period," she said.
A second case of an attack like this involved…
…71-year-old Patty Miller.
I had rented an old trailer up in Babb, Montana, just east of Glacier National Park, for the third year in a row. My brother has a summer fishing cabin just a quarter of a mile away. Every morning I’d take long walks around the pine-fringed lake with my two little Havanese dogs, Angus and Shamus. They were my best friends.
Maybe I should have known something was wrong when the bigger dog, Angus, didn’t want to go. He normally loved our walks. But I ignored it and forced him out anyway, thinking he’d change his mind on the way. I clipped my phone holster to my waist, and strapped my bear spray and police whistle to my belt.
Bear spray is a very good thing to have with you in case of bears. If the bear takes you by surprise, or is too close to you, you want an opportunity to use it. I’m not sure about the police whistle. Maybe she thought that there others were within ear shot.
My brother had warned me about what to do should I encounter a bear. You’re supposed to spray it from the ground up so that the mist gets up its nose, he’d said. If that doesn’t work, crouch over, make yourself as tiny as possible with your knees to your chest and head down. Play dead and hope it loses interest. When you’re actually running from a bear, I can assure you, all that goes right out the window.
This is a good thing to remember all you hikers and campers. We have seen cases where people did out run a bear, though the distance was rather slight. The decision to run was unfortunate.
The dirt road around the lake offered little shade, so at the top of a nearby hill with a clearing, I took off my jacket and tied it around my waist. The morning was eerily quiet; no birds were chirping. Still, I saw nothing, so I kept walking. I had made it 100 feet down the hill when I heard a snap.
The two cubs that bumbled out onto the road were the cutest things I’d ever seen. The full-sized momma grizzly bear lumbering behind them was not. She stopped when she saw me, not more than a telephone pole’s length away. She reared up onto her hind legs, must have been 8 feet tall. Her roar echoed throughout the valley as she dropped down to chase after me at a speed I didn’t think possible. “So this is how it ends,” I thought as I started to run.
This is the essence of the problem…mama bears make good mothers and will defend their cubs to the death. By the time the mama bear appears from the bush, it’s too late, unless you’re carrying a rifle or a shotgun.
I sprinted for the brush near where they’d come out and dove in. My tiny dogs were jumping 3 feet in the air to stop her. She struck at them, then came for me. I couldn’t reach my spray. I tried to take one last look at the beautiful, peaceful area I loved, but the bear blocked my view. I bent over, covering my face with my arms, cowering for my life, praying I could be quiet enough to make her magically disappear.
Her claws cut through my arm first, tearing it down away from my neck, the searing pain distracting me from what happened next. I thought she was scraping my scalp with her claws, but they tell me she bit my skull three times. My head was ducked down toward my body, my eyes shut tight against this nightmare. I didn’t look at her. “Never make eye contact with a bear,” my brother had told me. She pulled me out of the brush and raked her claws over my abdomen all the way up to my neck, trying to get at my organs. Before I blacked out, the only emotion I felt was anger. I was mad. Because I thought I was going to die, and I didn’t want to die.
If you’re attacked by an animal like a bear or a vicious dog or a primate, and you aren’t able to outrun it or drive it off, always cover your face. As gruesome as this, there are many people who have their faces during an animal attack.
They tell me she missed my carotid artery by the width of one hair. They tell me I lived because her cubs wandered off and she went to find them.
A dog’s bark brought me back to consciousness. Only one dog. I knew immediately that Angus was dead. My arm hurt, and I thought there might be something wrong with my head, but I just got up and unleashed my remaining dog. He took off toward home. It was 7:10 in the morning, and I thought, “This will be easy. I’ll just call for help.”
But my phone holster was empty. I’d put on the holster but forgotten the phone. I was alone.
It would seem that the cause of the attack, the bear being a good mother, is also what ended the attack.
I sat waiting, hoping against hope that someone would drive by. It took three and a half hours. At 11:40 a.m., a big truck rumbled by, driven by a schoolteacher taking some students on a fishing trip. I called out, “Do you think you could come over here and give me a hand?”
They stopped and scrambled toward me, rushing me into the truck and calling 911. In the middle of that, my sister-in-law came by, frantically asking them if they’d seen a dog. When she recognized me, she got in the truck with me and covered me with her shirt, then lay over me to keep me warm. We met the EMTs about 6 miles from where I was attacked, and the ambulance took me 40 minutes to Browning hospital. My eyes had swollen shut. It felt like paint was seeping down a wall, but the wall was my eyes and the paint was pain.
Can you imagine waiting three hours in this amount of pain waiting opportunity for help? Actively waiting…or so it would seem.
When they cut my clothes off, I felt like a piece of meat on a slab, exposed and raw. They gave me four pints of blood and immediately airlifted me to Kalispell Regional Medical Center. I went through seven and a half hours of surgery that first time, and had three subsequent operations in the coming days. They never actually told me what they were repairing, and I never asked.
Months later, at a wound check, they told me the bear had ripped all my muscles in the back of my neck. That she had ripped off one of my ears, and they had to sew it back on. The bear had smashed my jaw all the way back through my head, had crushed the bones under my eyelids.
I survived a fractured nose, several deep lacerations on the back.
A true survivor.
I survived a fractured nose, several deep lacerations on the back of my neck, three bites to my head, and long, deep cuts through my torso. I lay in the hospital for three weeks, half in intensive care, the other half in rehab. The bones in my eyes required more than 24 tiny nails to piece them back together. I only regained sight in one eye; the other is permanently shut—the nerves in my right eyelid are crushed and non-responsive, meaning it will not open on its own.
Now for the edification…
I’m not upset about my injuries, just grateful to be alive. The alternative was death.
As soon as I got out of the hospital, I went back to my trailer. No bear is going to deter me from living the life I love. I’m not afraid and I don’t stay indoors. As soon as I was able, I was out hiking again—only I go with a partner and always keep the bear spray in my hand. I still go to the lake every year.
Based on the number of occurrences like this one, which animal activists play down, when in you’re in bear country, carry a gun.
Now for…
…Patricia Van Tighem…
It’s rather amazing how many people survive these attacks, sometimes, by sheer will.
On the subject of mothers, if you were a child, nobody can be heroic than your mother. Just ask the…
…Harrop family…
Even Tinker the Dog was in jeopardy.
Who sleeps on a picnic table? But look at this from the perspective of the bear. He knows that humans put food on the picnic table to eat. Therefore, these two kids are the next meal, so why not steal these tasty morsels?
Don’t sleep on picnic tables!
Excuse me! I placed my order an hour ago!
It does seem unfair that a kid who chose not to sleep on a picnic bench was dragged out of his tent. It doesn’t seem to have dampened the spirits of a bunch of campers. And it doesn’t seem like this bear was looking for food. No, he seems to have been out looking for trouble.
So that’s good. But what about the bear?
Tooth prints on a cooking pot? Dental records are used to identify bodies, so, perhaps, they can be used to identify a bear. Maybe examination of the suspect’s paw prints could help. And chomping down on a cooking pot sounds painful.
Now we’ve all heard that if a bear attacks you…play dead. But my good friend Billy did something quite interesting…
Yes, he simply ignored the bear. To quote Glenn Close…I will not be ignored! But there is yet another thing you could do…
…go a couple of rounds with him…
So you don’t think that something like this ever happened? I have proof…
See! And it would seem that some people were rooting for the bear…
Ding, ding, ding! We have a new world champion…Mr. Bruin!
Now if you were the rangers at Yellowstone, and you had a bear running attacking people… what would you do? Put up warning signs? No. Close the certain area in the park from campers and hikers? No. Would you kill the rogue bear? Of course not. Would you catch him and take him to a zoo? All of these things would be stupid. Just ask Hilary Wiederhorn, Michelle Plunkett, and Jose Levinson…
He came back? He came back? Who could have seen that coming? Didn’t they serve the bear a trespass warning? A court order? But there is no way that banning a bear from that area could ever have worked for a reason that, I must say, suggests that Yellowstone Park authorities were dunderheads…
I’m still scratching my head. We all know that bears will, quite enthusiastically, rummage around through garbage to find food. But apparently, park officials managed not to know this. Would you move this dump somewhere else? That was the only way, short of killing him, that the bear wouldn’t cause problems for campers. And if we exiled a bear who was used to finding food in that very garbage dump…you think he won’t come back? But these weren’t the only idiots involved…
Yes, this American Youth Hostel Tours was so unaware of the threats posed by bears, they decided to camp one mile from a garbage dump.
I was surprised to learn that in Japan, nursery schools are actually run by nurses. And there are mountains in Japan, just like everywhere else…
I wasn’t aware that firemen were also bear hunters. But, or so it would seem, the bear got away.
Is it possible to have something bad happen over and over again? Sure, third times a charm…just ask Joe Lucas…
Joe vs. the bear!
Wow! In the space of 10 minutes, Joe gets attacked by the same bear three times. And there were cubs involved, which is when a female bear is most ferocious. Alas, poor Joe…I knew him well.
Oh, I see. Joe fought a bear three times in one day, and came out of it sore and bleeding, but lived to tell the tale. Impressive.
Still, people have used various weapons and tactics to chase a bear away from an attack. But there is one more, a weapon wielded by none other than G.H. Wadell…
When in doubt, reach for a frying pan and beat the bear with it. Just make sure there aren’t any eggs and bacon in it or you won’t succeed. But are there any other items that can be weaponized during a bear attack? Just ask Floyd Wilson…
This is an example of fighting a bear with a weapon seeing how we all walk around with a heavy ball of lead. Perhaps he found an old cannonball from the Civil War. I would like to know whether he ran up to the bear and it with the iron ball, or whether he threw it like a baseball. If the latter, then he was wasted as a telegraph operator…and should have been pitching for the Yankees.
But are there other ways to handle bears?
Yes, Ian Dunbar, a fun-loving Canadian schoolboy. Unfortunately, he was failed by those who should have been able to foresee the tragedy that would come.
Perhaps not as good as a frying pan, but broomsticks and hockey sticks will work too. The writer seems unsure as to which item was wielded by Mrs. Dunbar, but since this happened in Canada, I’m betting on a hockey stock. But I must say that the adults of this town have much to answer for. This bear had been prowling around for three weeks? And nobody realized that unless something was done to drive the bear away from the neighborhood, some child was going to die? They so didn’t care, that they took pictures of it.
Who would have guessed that honking your horn would prove better than frying pans and hockey sticks? And it’s too bad that the guys who set their vehicle on fire didn’t just honk the horn.
Timothy Treadwell and his girlfriend, Amie Huguenard. Treadwell was a bear enthusiast who would take trips to Alaska to live among the bears. Why? What raised such fascination for joining the local bear population, although human, nonetheless achieving the status of an honorary bear? Treadwell had been a heroin user and alcoholic who believed, after his first encounter with a bear, that it was the bear-life that would cure him. He would see the same bears every time he went to Alaska. However, the local rangers of the National Park Service was not thrilled with his activities, and had warning several times about his park violations. He was reckless, refusing to use bear spray. He also named the bears including Mr. Chocolate; The Grizzly; Freckles; Ebony; and The Fox.
Problems developed in October 2003. It turned out that Amie Huguenard, his girlfriend, who accompanied him on his bear journeys, did not like bears. She felt considerable discomfort when they were close. And the pair were in the park with bears later in the year than they should have been…during the time when bears eat as much as they can to build up fat for hibernation. It boggles the mind to learn that the pair set up camp near a salmon stream, where they would encounter hungry bears who could see them as competition for food. Making it worse, there was a shortage of food that year, making the bears more aggressive than usual. They left the area, but then returned. Most of the bears they knew were in hibernation. Enter Bear 141…the designation he was given. He was very hungry, reduced to eating dead salmon. Treadwell recorded that he was not comfortable around Bear 141. When the pair were not heard from, rangers went to the camp site and found two bears there, Bear 141 and younger bear. The camp had been trashed, and partial remains of Treadwell and Huguenard. The rangers shot both bears, with Bear 141 found to have remains of the couple in its stomach. A video camera was found that had no footage on it, but supposedly recorded the audio of the sickening attack suffered by the pair.
The campsite and Bear 141.
Disturbing revelations about Treadwell became public…
Treadwell told bear scientists he welcomed death by bear. He said it would be an honor to be killed, eaten and rendered bear scat. Had National Park Service rangers not killed the bear that ate him, he would have gotten his wish.
Becoming bear feces is your goal? Something was wrong, and it gives the appearance of a death wish. If you have a mind to, you can listen to a tape, 1:51 recording on youtube that purports to be from the tape that recorded his death (Grizzly Man (Audio of Bear Attack). I find it unlikely that this recording is genuine.
My brief digression became somewhat long…I must say. But the journey isn’t over…it’s just begun.