Confirmed

Bear Attacks
In the United States

Canada

My apologies for not keeping the BEAR ATTACKS Page up to date. The Bottom Line is, there are just TOO MANY BEAR ATTACKS for me to keep track of. There has been an especially high number in 2010, including at least 4 FATALITIES. About one in four attacks restlts in a death. Most other attacks result in serious PERMANENT disabling injuries.

Bears Are Dangerous - 13 Fatal Bear Attacks Since 2000 (through July, 2008)

1.Tennessee - May 2000, Female hiker attacked, killed and partially consumed by a female, 112 pound bear and her 40 pound yearling, in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park.

2.Quebec - July 2000, bear attacked and killed Mary-Beth Miller, 24, a biathlete while on training run.

3.Northwest Territories - June 2001, Young male attacked and killed at rural campsite

4.New Mexico - August 2001, bear breaks into house and is confronted by elderly owner who dies in ensuing attack.

5.Fallsburg, New York - August 2002, bear grabs 5 month old infant and stroller from porch resulting in death of child.

6.Quebec - September 2002, A man was attacked and killed in his campsite in the Gaspé region of Northern Quebec.

7.British Columbia - September 2002, Man attacked and killed at a remote oil rigging site in northeastern B.C.

8.Ontario - April 17 2003, forestry worker stalked, killed and partially consumed by large, male black bear. No rabies or other illness detected during necropsy.

9.Northwest Territories - 2005, 71-year-old Merlyn Carter was found dead behind the main cabin of his sport-fishing camp about 300 kilometres northeast of Fort Smith. Family members shot and killed the black bear responsible.

10.Manitoba - August 26, 2005, A 69-year-old man was fatally mauled by a black bear while out picking plums north of Winnipeg

11.Ontario - Jacqueline Perry, 30, died in a predatory attack in Missinaibi Lake Provincial Park. Here husband was seriously injured trying to protect her and then her body.

12.Tennessee - April 13, 2006, 6 year old Elora Petrasek from Ohio was killed and her mother and two year old brother seriously injured in black bear attack in the Cherokee National Forest.

13. Wednesday, July 25, 2007

INVERMERE, B.C. — A mountain biker was found dead in southeastern British Columbia, apparently after being attacked by a black bear, and in a separate incident a grizzly protecting her cubs charged two bicyclists, authorities said. The 34-year-old woman was reported missing Saturday night and was found dead Sunday on a trail near the Panorama Ski Resort near the Alberta boundary.

8-year-old survived black bear attack in Great Smoky Mountains

By PETER FRANCESCHINA | South Florida Sun-Sentinel • Published August 13, 2008

Eight-year-old Evan Pala of Boca Raton, Fla., was on a hiking trail in the Great Smoky Mountains with his father and brother, taking a few digital photos by a creek, when the black bear attacked out of nowhere.

"The bear was right there, jumped up on two feet, and he just jumped up on me," said Evan, who recounted the attack in a Tuesday phone interview from Gatlinburg, Tenn., where he was in good spirits despite bite and scratch wounds requiring 35 stitches.

"He put his teeth marks into my skin, and he just clawed me - put five scratches in the back of my head," Evan said about the attack, which happened Monday evening.

John Pala, 43, a medical insurance salesman based in Boca Raton, rushed to protect his son, running right out of his shoes.

"All of a sudden this bear is on him. In the blink of an eye, my little boy was totally in a bear hug," Pala said. "I couldn't see my son. He was engulfed by the bear. The kid was in the fetal position on the ground, and there was nothing in the world that was going to stop me from getting that bear off him."

Evan's elder brother, Alex, 10, was petrified at first. Then, following his father's cue, he flew into action.

"I saw it jumped on him, and I couldn't react fast enough to get him out of there," Alex said. "I'm having a heart attack. There's a bear attacking my little brother. I tried to help as fast as I could."

As Pala reached Evan, he didn't think twice about grabbing the bear by the head to unclench its powerful jaws from his boy. Rangers determined it was a young male bear weighing 86 pounds - about 25 pounds more than Evan - and very aggressive. In the struggle, Pala managed to yank the bear off of Evan.

The third-grader at Verde Elementary - clawed, bitten and bleeding - jumped up to run but stumbled.

"They both grabbed him. Off I ran, and tripped again, and then the bear came after me again, and my brother helped me again," Evan said, his words tumbling out as he described the attack.

"My dad tried to pull it off by the jaws," Alex said. "Evan starts running, and it starts chasing Evan again, because he falls. He's bleeding all on the side of his face."

Pala and Alex rushed in to rescue Evan again.

"The second time, me and Alex fought him again," Pala said. "I jumped on him and threw him off, and Alex threw sticks and stones at him. Evan ran off, then me and Alex scared the bear off and ran off."

The attack lasted just minutes, Pala said. "It happened that quick," he said.

They were near the trailhead of Rainbow Falls Trail, not far from their car parked on the Roaring Fork Motor Nature Trail. As Pala and Alex fended off the bear, Evan scrambled toward the car, disappearing from sight.

"Me and my Dad were throwing sticks and stones and whatever we could find to keep it away from us. We were yelling, 'Evan! Evan! Where are you?' We couldn't find him," Alex said.

"The bear looked like he wanted to come back for more," Pala said.

By the time Pala and Alex reached the car, Evan was getting help from other park visitors, who called 911. An ambulance took Evan to a nearby hospital, where he received 35 stitches and staples to close the wounds to his arms, torso and head. He and his father were treated and released within hours of the attack.

Forest rangers were on the scene within minutes. They found a bear in the vicinity and shot it, after it acted aggressively, according to Bob Miller, a spokesman for the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Rangers found a shoe and ball cap nearby.

The bear will undergo a necropsy and genetic testing to determine if it was the bear that attacked the family, but rangers are certain it was, Miller said. Such attacks are rare in the park, he said.

Evan is doing well, Pala said, considering such a close encounter with the unpredictable side of nature. He's even earned a new nickname - "Chief Bear Fighter."

"I got a smile out of him today for the first time," said Pala, who was on his way to buy a new pair of tennis shoes for his bruised and battered feet. "He was as scared as could be. He did really good, though. He was quite the trouper."

The family vacation that began Sunday may be cut short. Everybody's a bit beaten up, sore and tired.

"My feet and my knees are just black and blue. I got one swipe mark from the bear," Pala said.

"My legs are sore. I'm not really good at walking right now. My arms hurt," Evan said. "The stitches hurt, because when I get my shirt on I keep thinking I'm going to pull them out."

Alex said he doubts his brother wants to continue the mountain vacation, anyway.

"I don't think he's going to want to go back into the woods."

Victim of bear attack recovering from hand wounds

By SUSAN GALLAGHER | The Associated Press • Published July 21, 2008

HELENA, Mont. — An Oregon man was recovering in a hospital Friday from wounds inflicted by a bear at a Montana campground a day earlier, and wildlife officials were trying to trap the animal they believe is a grizzly.

The man was at a campground about five miles from the northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park when the bear entered his tent and attacked him early Thursday.

Steven Bartley, 59, of Springfield, Ore., said he received about a dozen puncture wounds to both hands, some deep lacerations and a broken bone below his thumb that required surgery.

He is likely to be released from the West Park Hospital in Cody, Wyo., on Sunday, hospital spokesman Joel Hunt said.

In Montana’s Cooke City area near Yellowstone, two baited bear traps were in place Friday at the Soda Butte campground where the attack occurred as Bartley lay in a sleeping bag inside his three-man tent, said Melissa Frost, spokeswoman for the state Department of Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

Bartley told The Billings Gazette that he and a friend were on their way to Gillette, Wyo., for an international motorcycle rally when the attack occurred.

He said he awoke that night when something bumped his feet and then head-butted him.

Bartley sat up and began to unzip his tent, and a bear bit his right hand. He was unable to see the animal in the darkness.

“It was just over so fast,” Bartley told the Gazette Friday from his hospital room. “I really feared for my life.”

Bartley yelled for help while striking at the bear with his left fist. The bear bit that hand, then clamped again on his right hand.

“I was just going nuts, screaming at the top of my lungs,” said Bartley, a former Colorado law enforcement officer who now works part time for the Springfield parks and recreation district. “When that’s happening, you’ll do anything — swing, kick.”

His yelling woke up nearby campers, and the commotion apparently caused the bear to run off.

Bartley received emergency care at the campground host’s campsite, then was taken to West Park Hospital.

Careless food storage sometimes is a factor in conflicts between wildlife and people, but not in this case, Frost said. Bartley’s campsite was “spotless,” she said.

“He didn’t have any food in his campsite outside of a bear-proof container,” she said. “He didn’t cook at his campsite. The campground overall was very clean.”

Given the bear’s behavior, wildlife officials believe it was accustomed to people and their food, Frost said.

If the bear is trapped, it likely will be killed, she said.

“This kind of behavior is a serious concern for public safety,” Frost said.

Both the Soda Butte campground and another nearby remained closed Friday, for the second day.

In southwestern Montana, state wildlife officials trapped and killed a black bear north of Dillon after a backpacker was bitten while cooking fish at his campsite earlier this month, The Montana Standard reported. Fish, Wildlife and Parks told the newspaper the bear trapped July 10 at a campground in the Pioneer Mountains was euthanized. The agency said it could not be certain the bear was the same one that bit the backpacker.

He received hospital care for puncture wounds and was released.

Grizzly attacks teen bike rider

10:09 PM, June 29, 2008

A teenage girl riding in an all-night bicycle race in Alaska suffered severe wounds early Sunday morning when a grizzly bear attacked her on a trail in Far North Bicentennial Park, authorities said. The Chicago Tribune reports:

Police officers with shotguns escorted medics into dark woods to retrieve the girl, who was to undergo surgery at Providence Alaska Medical Center. The hospital reported she was still in surgery at 6:30 a.m. Sunday. "She was cut up and bit pretty good," said Anchorage Police Officer Jean Mills. Police declined to identify the victim. ..

Police were called at 1:35 a.m. after another bicyclist found the mauled girl down and dazed on the ground. She was among about 60 participants in a 24-hour race sponsored by the Arctic Bicycle Club. The team event began at noon Saturday and was to end at noon Sunday. Organizers canceled it after the attack and were trying to account for all the other riders.

Most likely the grizzly, which has a pair of cubs, was fishing for salmon in the creek and might not have heard the cyclist coming due to stream noise and strong winds roaring through the forest, he said.

A spokesman said this afternoon that the girl was expected to survive.

Monday, September 3, 2007 - Page updated at 02:06 AM

Bear attacks mountain biker in Kitsap park

By Christina Siderius

Seattle Times staff reporter

A mountain biker was attacked by a black bear Sunday while riding through a Kitsap County park with his two dogs.

The 51-year-old man came upon the bear at about noon during a ride through the trails at Banner Forest Heritage Park in Olalla, said Ron Powers, battalion chief for South Kitsap Fire and Rescue. The man's dogs were in front of him on the trail when he heard them barking. He came around a blind corner and was face to face with the bear, Powers said.

The bear immediately charged the man, who picked up his bike and attempted to protect himself with it.

Reaching through the bike, the bear tore at the man's arm, face, back, neck and ear, Powers said.

"And then, for some reason, the bear stops," Powers said. The man was able to get on his bike and ride out of the forest, where he found two people who called 911.

Paramedics treated the man and took him to St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma. His condition was not released, but Powers said he was in "pretty bad shape."

One of the dogs, skittish after the attack, bit a bystander, Powers said. The other dog was not found.

The Kitsap County Sheriff's Office blocked off the two entrances to the park and attempted to evacuate it.

A state Department of Fish and Wildlife officer was gathering a team of dogs, with the intent of finding the bear and euthanizing it.

Another mountain biker who was leaving the park had reported seeing a black bear with two cubs earlier in the day.

"It's quite likely it's the same bear," Powers said. "The reason it was so aggressive was because of the two cubs."

Banner Forest Heritage Park, a woodsy, 635-acre park outside the town of Olalla, is known for its extensive trail system and is a popular place for horseback riding, hiking and mountain biking.

Christina Siderius: csiderius@seattletimes.com

Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.

Wednesday, July 25, 2007 - Page updated at 11:29 PM

Bear attack blamed for woman's death in British Columbia

By The Associated Press

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The 34-year-old woman was reported missing Saturday night and was found dead Sunday on a trail near the Panorama Ski Resort near the Alberta boundary, Paul Visentin, a British Columbia conservation officer, told Global TV.

A bear was "right where the body was recovered, as though it was guarding the site, which would indicate to me that the bear had preyed upon this person or obviously was trying to claim ownership," Visentin said.

Royal Canadian Mounted Police shot the bear.

To the east, in Banff National Park, two bicyclists escaped with minor injuries after being charged by a grizzly protecting her cubs Sunday on the trail near Lake Minnewanka. The trail was later closed.

The riders saw the cubs but were unable to react before the mother bear was after them, park officials said. The bear didn't make contact but the cyclists were scraped and scratched from falling off their bicycles, officials said.

Bear attacks woman at doorway of home

Written by: Jeff Wolf, Web Producer Created: 4/30/2007 2:10.28PM

Updated by:Colleen Locke, Producer Last updated:4/30/2007 8:19.26PM8:1926PM

And Anastasiya Bolton, Reporter

BEAR ATTACKS WOMAN AT DOORWAY OF HOME

CONIFER, Colorado – The Division of Wildlife says a bear was shot and killed Monday morning after a woman was injured in an attack at the door of her home.

The DOW says the woman, who has identified herself as Christine Whitteker, heard her dog barking outside around 12:30 a.m. at 9568 Fallen Rock Rd. She tells 9NEWS she was pulling the dog inside when the bear lunged at her. She says she then slammed the door shut.

"Once she opened the door the bear took a swipe at her and got her pretty good," said Lisa Hughes, a neighbor.

"I was asleep and I heard this scream. It woke me up," said Tom Hughes, Lisa's father.

Her injuries were not life threatening.

After the attack, a DOW officer followed bear tracks into the woods and saw three sets of animal eyes.

One of the black bears charged at the officer who then shot and killed the bear.

"The first shot rang out and I heard a bear groan. Then they shot him two more times to make sure that the bear was dead," said Hughes.

The bear shot by the DOW officer has been taken to a lab in Fort Collins.

Traps are being set in the area to try and capture the other two bears believed to have been involved in the attack. Once the bears are caught, the DOW may either euthanize them or relocate them.

Whitteker was treated and released from Swedish Medical Center.

The attack is a warning to people who live across Colorado.

"This is definitely the time of year when bears are coming out from hibernation," said Jennifer Churchill with the DOW. "They can eat 10 to 20,000 calories a day. They'll eat pretty much anything."

The DOW says there are no definite rules about what you should do if you encounter a black bear. However, they do have some tips:

* Stay calm - If you see a bear and it hasn't seen you, calmly leave the area. As you move away, talk aloud softly to let the bear discover your presence.

* Stop - Back away slowly while facing the bear. Avoid direct eye contact as bears may perceive this as a threat. Give the bear plenty of room to escape. Wild bears rarely attack people unless they feel threatened or provoked.

* If on a trail, step off the trail on the downhill side and slowly leave the area - Don't run or make any sudden movements. Running is likely to prompt the bear to chase and you cannot outrun a bear. Do not attempt climbing trees to escape black bears. This may stimulate the bear to follow and pull you out by the foot. Stand your ground.

* Speak softly - This may reassure the bear that no harm is meant to it. Try not to show fear.

* In contrast to grizzly bears, female black bears do not normally defend their cubs aggressively; but send them up trees. However, use extra caution if you encounter a female black bear with cubs. Move away from the cub; be on the lookout for other cubs. The majority of bears in Colorado are black bears.

* Fight back if a black bear attacks you - Black bears have been driven away when people have fought back with rocks, sticks, binoculars and even their bare hands.

The DOW says if you live in bear country, you should make sure you keep your garbage out of the reach and smell of bears. If you have pets, you should not store their food or feed them outside and you should keep any children in your sight at all times. The DOW says you should also beware of beehives, since they attract bears.

If you have a potentially life threatening situation with a bear, you are urged to contact the DOW, the Colorado State Patrol or your local sheriff's department.

You can contact the DOW's Denver headquarters at 303-297-1192.

written by: Jeffrey Wolf , Web Producer

updated by: Colleen Locke , Producer

and Anastasiya Bolton , Reporter

created: 4/30/2007 2:10:28 PM

Last updated: 4/30/2007 8:19:26 PM

CONIFER, Colorado – The Division of Wildlife says a bear was shot and killed Monday morning after a woman was injured in an attack at the door of her home.

Nation & World: Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Alaska hunter survives bear attack

By Dan Joling

The Associated Press

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — A hunter kneeling over the carcass of a young grizzly bear he had just killed was mauled by a larger grizzly that charged him from its den.

Lynn Keogh, 42, of Anchorage, was treated and released from a hospital after the attack Friday. He suffered a broken hand and bite wounds in the mauling before his hunting partner shot and killed the grizzly.

Keogh, a hunting and fishing guide, and friend Ray Bendixen had driven to Keogh's cabin near Eureka northwest of Fairbanks on Friday and drove snowmobiles north 60 to 70 miles to the Oshetna River valley.

They spotted a den on a hillside and a small bear moving in and out of it. After five hours, Keogh shot the bear. The hunters waited to make sure the bear was dead, then talked for about five more minutes when they reached the carcass.

No tracks indicated another bear might be present. But then the second bear charged out of the den, a hole about 24 inches wide in the hillside, straight for Keogh.

He managed to hit the bear with a shot from his rifle, but it still bit him up and down his body.

"The shot that I got into the bear was more than likely a mortal wound, but it wasn't going to do it fast enough," Keogh said Tuesday.

Keogh said he felt the grizzly clamp down on his head and let go. Then Bendixen dropped the bear with a shot from his rifle from between 20 and 30 feet away.

"I heard a shot," Keogh said. "I don't know if I heard it or felt the shot hit the bear," but suddenly the bear was dead, slumped on top of him.

The smaller bear, which he estimated to be about 6 feet tall, turned out to be a 3-year-old, legal to be killed. The older bear, a sow at 6 1/2 to 7 feet tall, may have been its mother.

Traps set after attack to catch grizzly

Bear protecting moose carcass in E. Idaho mauls man who went out to see why his dog was barking

By Rocky Barker and Patrick Orr - Idaho Statesman

Edition Date: 04/12/07

State game wardens have set traps near a home in Tetonia where a grizzly bear attacked a man Tuesday.

Timothy Henderson, 33, was flown by helicopter to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center in Idaho Falls where he is in stable condition.

So far, the grizzly remains at large, but officials suspect it will return to the moose carcass it was feeding on just prior to the attack. The bear, if caught, could be killed.

When the bear charged and mauled Henderson around 8:30 p.m. Tuesday, he was walking outside, trying to figure out why his dog was barking.

Henderson's home, in a wooded subdivision with homes an acre or more apart, is within the habitat of Yellowstone grizzly bears, which are scheduled to lose the protection of the Endangered Species Act within weeks.

Under the act, the species is listed as threatened and can be killed only under strict guidelines.

Idaho Department of Fish and Game officials said they have the authority to kill the bear if they find it, although they said they want to trap the bear to make sure they have the right animal.

"After the well-being of the victim, the safety of the public is our top concern," said Jon Heggen, Fish and Game's chief of enforcement.

Officials suspect the bear was instinctively protecting its food when it encountered Henderson, who was only 50 feet from his home, Teton County Sheriff Kim Cook said.

Henderson was outside alone; his wife was inside, Cook said.

Steve Schmidt, regional supervisor for Idaho Fish and Game's Upper Snake Region, said Henderson was doing well when he talked to him in the hospital Wednesday morning.

"He was in a lot better condition than I expected," Schmidt said.

"The bear charged him and knocked him down, (but) he was smart enough to roll into a ball."

Schmidt said the bear "chewed (Henderson) up pretty good" but said he was already recovering.

Henderson told officials he briefly saw the grizzly in the fading light Tuesday night before it knocked him down and began mauling him.

Henderson suffered injuries to his head, shoulder, back and buttocks before the bear moved away. Schmidt said Henderson was able to get back to his house to call emergency crews, who took him to the hospital.

Henderson told authorities he did not want the bear killed because he thought it was just doing what bears naturally do.

Schmidt said there was no evidence the bear tried to eat Henderson.

"It looks like both the bear and the victim were in the wrong place at the wrong time," Schmidt said.

Henderson's skull was not punctured, as is common when a grizzly tries to eliminate a perceived threat, according to one expert.

"The man did the right thing by curling up into a ball to protect his vitals," said Steve Nadeau, the large carnivore manager for Idaho Department of Fish and Game.

"Once the threat (to the bear) was alleviated, the bear moved on. It's very common in those sorts of incidents."

The moose carcass was found about 150 feet from the man's home in thick cover, according to Fish and Game reports. Henderson did not know the carcass was there, Schmidt said.

Fish and Game officials, who found grizzly tracks near the home, said Wednesday they laid traps around the moose carcass and were working with sheriff's officials to trap the bear, but the bear had not returned to the area by late Wednesday.

Cook said Tuesday's sighting was the year's first in the Tetonia area, but grizzly sightings are common during the summer. Tetonia is about 40 miles east of Rexburg at the foot of the Teton Range.

Nadeau said a grizzly attacked a person last year in the Henrys Lake area, about 70 miles north of Tetonia.

In that case, a lone hiker suffered injuries to his buttocks. Nadeau said the bear reported in that attack was not found.

Nadeau said there have been at least three or four black bear attacks during the past 20 years, but injuries to people were minor.

In general, grizzly bears in the area come out of hibernation in March. Their major food source at this time is winter-killed game.

Nadeau estimated there are about 100 grizzly bears in Idaho — between 20 and 30 in the Idaho portion of the Yellowstone ecosystem near Wyoming, and 50 to 70 in the Selkirk mountain ecosystem in the Idaho Panhandle.

Overall, federal wildlife officials say there are more than 600 grizzlies in the greater Yellowstone ecosystem that covers the national park and surrounding areas in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming.

Henderson's home is 5.5 miles northeast of Tetonia in low foothills at the base of the Teton Range, where sagebrush mixes with stands of aspen trees on the edge of a large evergreen forest.

Grizzly numbers have risen in Idaho in the past decade as sheep ranches have been bought out and hundreds of miles of forest roads have been closed.

At the same time, hundreds of homes have been built on the edges of grizzly habitat in Teton and Fremont counties, some of the fastest-growing areas in the state.

"As we put more and more homes in grizzly country, we will expect more and more encounters like this unless people are vigilant," Schmidt said.

To offer story ideas or comments, contact reporter Rocky Barker at rbarker@idahostatesman.com or 377-6484.

Man attacked by bear at popular campground

By CRAIG MEDRED,Anchorage Daily News

Published:July 30,2006
Last Modified:July 30,2006 at 07:00 PM

ANCHORAGE,Alaska(AP)- Wakened from sleep in a tent at the Russian River Campground early Saturday,Chicago tourist Daniel Kuczero didn't consider the possibility that a grizzly bear tugging at the nylon woke him.

He figured it had to be a dog he heard outside in the 4:30 a.m. stillness,witnesses say.

Then the animal collapsed the tent on him.

That,according to RussianRiver campground manager Butch Bishop and others,was the first indication Kuczero had that the animal probably wasn't a dog. Kuczero apparently decided the best thing to do was play dead.

He changed his mind when the bear grabbed his body - still wrapped up in a sleeping bag inside the tent - by the shoulder,in-law Rich Dunn said by telephone from Cooper Landing on the Kenai Peninsula on Saturday afternoon.

That was enough to start Kuczero screaming.

"When it bit him in the shoulder,"Dunn said,"he yelled."

The bear took off at the noise as relatives camped nearby in a motor home quickly came to Kuczero's aid. It was a scary moment for everyone as it happened,but Kuczero was doing better Saturday afternoon.

"He was laughing about it,"Dunn said."But at the time,he was pretty shook up."

Dunn said he thinks the bear might have picked on Dunn's campsite because it was a"very small tent."

Bishop said he isn't sure what to think.

Though the RussianRiver campground in the ChugachNational Forest has a history of bears running in and around the campsites,this is the first time anyone can remember a bear actually going after a tent.

Other than the tent being conveniently located on the bluff just above the popular salmon stream,Bishop said,there was no reason for the bear to go to the campsite Kuczero used.

"The campsite,the picnic table,the tent - everything was clean,"Bishop said.

There have been problems with bears invading other campsites in the campground this year because of food left out,but that apparently was not the case here,Bishop said.

Luckily,he added,Kuczero - who could not be reached - suffered only minor injuries.

"(The bite)didn't break the skin,"Bishop said.

The campground manager was happy about that.

"I've been through the Bigley thing,"Bishop said.

Young angler Daniel Bigley nearly died along the RussianRiver in mid-July 2003. He was walking along a riverside trail on his way back from salmon fishing when an agitated bear knocked him down,grabbed him by the face and crushed his skull. Other anglers who came to his aid,coupled with the quick arrival of emergency medical technicians and a rescue helicopter from Anchorage,saved his life,but he was blinded.

Well aware of the Bigley story,Bishop could only say,"He(Kuczero)is so lucky."

U.S. Forest Service spokeswoman Rebecca Talbott said that because of the attack,the agency has imposed a temporary ban on tent camping in the popular campground at Mile 52.6 Sterling Highway,about 105 road miles south of Anchorage. Only camping in recreational vehicles or trailers will be allowed,she said.

The agency is also instituting a night-time closure of riverside trails. There are fears that anglers using those trails to get to the late run of red salmon just beginning to return to the river could encounter a bear,as Bigley did.

A number of grizzly bears have been in the area much of the summer,including a couple of young bears whose mother was shot there last year. Those two bears subsequently took to wandering the riverbanks looking for salmon carcasses left by anglers. Over the course of the last two summers,they have lost nearly all fear of humans.

Bishop has had to chase the bears out of the campground regularly,and they have caused repeated problems for anglers on the river - ripping into backpacks,stealing fish and otherwise targeting people for food.

Whether one of these bears was the one that pounced on Kuczero is unknown. Though Kuczero's nephew,who was in the nearby RV,saw the bear,he viewed it through a tinted window,Bishop said.

"The color of the bear is really unknown,"Bishop said,and even its size is unclear.

Nobody in the campground - other than those sharing Kuczero's campsite - heard anything of the attack,which didn't create much noise except for the victim's yelling.

Bishop said he probably woke up more people with the noise of his diesel truck as he cruised the campground after the attack to look for the bear and make sure no one had left anything out that might attract bears.

He was hoping that state and federal wildlife officials might have a better idea of what happened after they got a good look at the scene.

"It flattened the tent,"Bishop said."We didn't touch it."

---

Information from:Anchorage Daily News,http://www.adn.com

Northwest briefs
THE OLYMPIAN,July 7,2006

Hawaiian mauled by bear in Alaska

ANCHORAGE,Alaska - A Hawaii woman was being treated in a Seattle hospital Thursday after she was mauled by a brown bear in Southeast Alaska.

Ann Scheller,57,suffered head,neck and leg wounds in the attack Sunday in BergBay,about 20 miles east of Wrangell.

Scheller,of Mililani,said she was briefly separated from two hikers on a trail when she got between the female bear and its cubs. The bears left the area after the mauling.

Man lives to tell tale of grizzly mauling

By SEAN PEARSON

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS 6/1/2006

HOMER,Alaska - Mike Mungoven had two thoughts as he stumbled into a large grizzly on his morning run Sunday.

I looked up at this huge bear standing just 2 feet in front of me,the sun shining off its golden- brown fur,"Mungoven said."I remember thinking,'Wow,that's just beautiful.' And then,'Oh boy,this is going to hurt.'"

Mungoven was on his regular run Sunday morning,the same path he has taken every morning for several years.

"I always run with my dogs,and remind them to be careful around this particular area because the forest there is more dense with black spruce,"Mungoven said."Next thing I knew,I heard some rustling in the woods and the bear was standing 2 feet in front of me."

Mungoven and the bear stared at each other momentarily,and then the bear reacted.

"The bear got me across the shoulder first,then took a couple more swipes at me,"he said."I went down and curled up into a fetal position."

It was a move that Mungoven had been taught many times,and possibly what saved his life.

"It really worked pretty well,"he said."I just played dead. The bear came back and bit me a couple more times and then left me alone."

Mungoven said he speculated that the bear possibly was a female protecting her cubs,as he thought he heard some mewing sounds coming from the woods behind her.

"I really think the bear actually showed quite a bit of kindness in the way she mauled me,"Mungoven said.

Thomas McDonough,assistant area biologist for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game,said the four bear maulings on the Kenai Peninsula last year occurred when people surprised bears. Mungoven's case appears similar,he said.

McDonough said this was the first reported mauling of the year.

"It seems that it was just a case of surprise in the woods,and in cases like that,it is not a predatory way,"McDonough said."But if a bear has chronically been a problem,we would certainly want to take care of that bear by either trapping it or dispatching it."

Mungoven said he was unsure of the number of stitches he received during his 11 hours of surgery,but he said he knew there were several puncture wounds that doctors had to cut open to clean out.

"The attack itself really wasn't very painful,"Mungoven said."She missed my carotid artery and only got a few bites in. I guess I was lucky all the way around."

After hearing the bear disappear into the woods,Mungoven said,he called after his dogs several times.

"They were at the road,waiting for me to come out of the woods,"he said."They were just sitting there like,'OK,when you're done playing with the bear,we'll be right here waiting for you.'"

Black bear runs down cyclist

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

THE OLYMPIAN,Tuesday,May 16,2006

BANFF,Alberta -- A black bear chased,caught and mauled a bicycle rider on a mountain trail in Canada's oldest and most popular national park,and was shot and killed when it refused to leave the area,a warden said.

The biker,Greg Flaaten,41,a Web administrator for the town of Banff,was being treated for severe arm injuries at FoothillsHospital in Calgary following the attack,and reconstructive surgery in the biceps and triceps area was scheduled Monday.

Authorities initially feared Flaaten might lose his arm,but that concern was eased when a key artery was found to be intact,maintaining circulation to the lower part of the arm,said Ian Syme,chief warden for BanffNational Park.

A bear evidently ran down and attacked Flaaten on Friday evening along the heavily wooded Hoodoos-Bow River Trail through the park east of the town,he said.

"We heard he had been chased on the bicycle for a while,"Syme said."We're not sure how far that was. Certainly at the time when you are chased like that,things can seem to be a lot longer than they might be,but apparently he was chased."

Flaaten was found around 8 p.m. after two acquaintances,Robert Earl and Robin Borstmayer,saw his bike and a broken helmet near the trail,then heard him calling for help. They spotted Flaaten nearby.

Confronted by the bear as it continued pacing between them and Flaaten,they pedaled to a nearby campground and called a warden,who rushed to the scene along with a Royal Canadian Mounted officer. The bear,still pacing near Flaaten,was shot dead by the warden.

Syme said predatory attacks by bears are rare,adding that 95 percent of the time the bear runs away and that attacks that do occur are almost always in self-defense or a sow defending her cubs.

He estimated the bear that was shot was about 140 pounds,much lighter than a normal,healthy bear.

Monday, April 24, 2006 · Last updated 12:43 p.m. PT

Colorado ranch hand recovering after bear attack

By DAN ELLIOTT

The Associated Press

DENVER – Harold Cerda had just left an outhouse on a southern Colorado ranch when a bear swatted him to the ground and chased him to his car, where he discovered the animal had also eaten his lunch.

"He sent me a good 10 or 15 feet," Cerda told The Associated Press in a telephone interview Friday. "I'm used to hard falls because I used to ride bulls a lot. It's pretty much the hardest I've been hit."

He guessed the cinnamon-colored black bear was anywhere from 150 to 500 pounds and nearly 61/2 feet tall when standing.

Cerda, 29, was treated and released at a Pueblo hospital for bruises and possible nerve damage to his neck and shoulder. He said he can't move his right arm.

Cerda, a ranch hand on the Harteis International ranch about 175 miles south of Denver near the New Mexico line, was attacked Wednesday afternoon. Division of Wildlife spokesman Michael Seraphin said wildlife officers believe the bear happened along, noticed the lunch in the car and crawled through an open window to help itself.

Seraphin said the bear was apparently walking toward the outhouse as Cerda emerged.

"I think what happened was I surprised him, so he hit me," Cerda said. He said the blow knocked him 10 to 15 feet.

After a few seconds, he spotted the bear a short distance away and started walking to his car. So did the bear.

"He started picking up his pace, and so did I," Cerda said.

Once inside, he started the engine to get the electric windows up and noticed the remnants of his lunch. As the bear sniffed around the windows and chewed on the tires, Cerda snapped photos with his cell phone for a few minutes and drove away.

Wildlife officials found bear prints on top of the car. Cerda, who is married with a son, said he was never really scared.

"I grew up in the mountains," he said. "I know not to panic."

District Wildlife Manager Bob Holder said a trap had been set for the bear in the latest attack, which will also be destroyed if captured because it had attacked a human.

Cerda said he hopes that doesn't happen because he doesn't think the bear would have attacked at all if it hadn't been startled.

"If he wanted to attack, he would have killed me right there," he said.

Wildlife officials say several factors, including hard freezes or droughts that kill off berries and acorns, and bears foraging for food after they emerge from hibernation lead to rare attacks.

"If bears were going to go around eating people we would be reporting it everyday," he said.

There have been 23 documented bear attacks on humans in Colorado since 1998, according to data from the Division of Wildlife. Before Cerda, the last one happened in September when a large black bear injured an 85-year-old woman, who had been regularly feeding the bear sunflower seeds.

Monday, April 24, 2006 · Last updated 12:43 p.m. PT

Injured hunter had been chasing bear on private timberland

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

FORKS, Wash. -- A man injured by a black bear had been chasing the animal on private timberland when the bear turned the tables on its pursuers, the investigating officer said Sunday.

Bear season doesn't open until later in the year, but the man was hunting the animal under a special permit issued by the state Fish and Wildlife Department to Rayonier Inc., which owns the land where the hunt was proceeding Saturday, about 6 miles west of the Olympic National Park boundary.

It appeared the hunters had been pursuing the bear for some time, said Fish and Wildlife Officer Brian Fairbanks.

"It's like, you have the fight-or-flight response. It ran for so long, and then decided, 'We're not going to run any more,'" Fairbanks said.

At that point, the hunter and the bear were in heavy brush, the officer said. "He didn't realize the bear was there, and when he got close enough the bear jumped out and grabbed him."

It was not a surprise attack, he said. "They knew it was there - they'd been chasing it. ... The guy got bit but he was the one who put himself in position to get bit."

A second hunter shot and killed the bear before summoning help.

The injured man underwent surgery Sunday on a broken arm, Fairbanks said.

"The bear had grabbed his arm and dragged him down an embankment," he said. "It required some surgery to put him together."

The man, whose name was not released, also suffered a broken wrist and two bite wounds on the upper thigh.

It was a legal hunt, Fairbanks said, with no violation of conditions of the permit.

Fairbanks is based in Forks, an Olympic Peninsula community on the northwest edge of Olympic National Park.

Bear Attack Victims Familiar With Area

By BILL POOVEY

The Associated Press
Monday, April 17, 2006; 10:28 PM

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. -- The mountaintop swimming hole near where a black bear killed a 6-year-old girl and injured her mother and 2-year-old half brother was a favorite spot for the outdoors-loving family, relatives said Monday.

Relatives of Elora Petrasek met with reporters for the first time since she was killed near the pool at the base of a waterfall on a 1,800-foot mountain in the Cherokee National Forest of southeast Tennessee.

This family photo provided by Erlanger Medical Center shows Elora Petrasek, of Clyde, Ohio, in an undated photograph. Petrasek, 6, was killed April 13, 2006 by a black bear in the Cherokee National Forest in southeast Tennessee. (AP Photo/Family photo) (AP)

"We are very familiar with this area, very familiar with being out in nature," her father, Robert Petrasek, 37, of Sarasota, Fla., said after reading a statement thanking rescuers and doctors. The family previously lived in southeast Tennessee, he said.

Elora, who now lives in Clyde, Ohio, was attacked Thursday afternoon. The bear also bit 2-year-old Luke Cenkus, puncturing his skull, and went after the children's mother, Susan Cenkus, 45, who tried to fend off the animal with rocks and sticks.

The mother remained in critical condition Monday at Erlanger Medical Center in Chattanooga, but she was "awake and doing well" and "neurologically intact," Dr. Vicente Mejia said in a statement.

Her son was listed in fair condition and is expected to receive more antibiotics before being released, as well as a psychological evaluation for any emotional trauma.

Elora's half brother, Christopher Dennison, 23, said the two children and their mother had come to Tennessee to see him perform in a musical program at nearby Lee University, where he is a student. He said his mother "would have gladly given her life" for the children.

"That was our favorite place to go for recreation, and so we never had any fear of being there," Dennison said.

Wildlife officers caught and euthanized a black bear on Saturday that they believed attacked the family. Preliminary tests at the University of Tennessee's College of Veterinary Medicine in Knoxville to try to determine why the bear might have attacked were not conclusive.

"We are leaning toward a predatory attack at this time, until we can find another reason," said Dan Hicks, a spokesman for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency.

A necropsy was planned after tests showed the animal was not rabid.

Dennison said the family was eager to learn if the bear was the one that killed Elora.

Sunday, April 23, 2006 - Page updated at 12:00 AM

Bear attacks hunter near Olympic National Park

By The Associated Press

FORKS, Wash. — A black bear attacked and seriously injured a hunter on a road just outside Olympic National Park late Saturday, authorities said.

A second hunter shot and killed the bear before summoning help, said Larry Evans, a shift supervisor for the Washington State Patrol's office in Bremerton, on the Kitsap Peninsula between Seattle and the Olympic Peninsula.

The injured hunter was rushed to Forks Hospital with a compound fracture to the arm, a broken hand and several bite marks, Evans said.

The man lost a significant amount of blood, but was expected to survive, Evans said.

The attack was reported to the state patrol around 9 p.m., and aid workers arrived about 15 minutes later.

The bear apparently had dragged the man away from the site of the attack before being shot, Evans said.

Troopers said they receive occasional reports of cougar attacks in the area, but that bear attacks are relatively rare.

Forks is a small town near the northwest edge of Olympic National Park, one of the state's most popular attractions for hunters, anglers and other outdoors enthusiasts.

August 25, 2005 Glacier National Park

Grizzly bear attacks Johan Otter and daughter, Jenna, while hiking on a popular tail to Grinnell Glacier.

Pain, gratitude and a long fight back

His daughter was safe and he was recovering, but months later, he knew the bear still had him.

By Thomas Curwen, Times Staff Writer
April 30, 2007

HIS halo was a cage, and all Johan Otter could do was stare out through the carbon graphite rods that pinned his head in place.

If he slept, he dreamed, and the dreams bordered on nightmares. He lay in a passageway somewhere between a gym and a locker room. People came and went. He didn't mind the traffic, only he was puzzled by a black object in the middle of the room. It looked like the Batmobile, dark and sinister. What was it?

Uncertainty brought a tinge of adrenaline and a flood of panic. Trapped by this metal contraption locking his head to his shoulders, treatment for a broken neck, he couldn't move. The walls of Harborview Medical Center in Seattle closed around him. He tried to find the call button, but it was lost in the bedding. He was alone. He screamed for help.

Morphine for the pain. Valium and Ativan for the anxiety.

Prescriptions were easy. Patience was the hardest part, and though he had been trained as a physical therapist and knew all about the challenge of recovering from trauma, he still found himself spiraling into restless despair. He asked a doctor if he was going to die.

"No way," the doctor said. "You're going to live. You're already over the hump."

Six days before, on Aug. 25, 2005, Johan, 43, and his daughter Jenna, 18, had been hiking in Glacier National Park. She had just graduated from high school in Escondido. It was a father-daughter trip, and they had surprised a grizzly bear and its two cubs on the trail to Grinnell Glacier. Trying to flee, they had fallen about 70 feet down a rocky cliff.

The bear had followed. For 15 minutes, it attacked them savagely, especially Johan, who stood between it and Jenna. Shivering, cold and in shock, they spent nearly six hours on a mountainside as the National Park Service worked to rescue them by helicopter. Johan was the first one lifted off.

At Kalispell Regional Medical Center in Kalispell, Mont., the first place he was treated, the doctors were shocked that he had survived. His mauling was the worst they had ever seen. He had no scalp. From his hairline to the base of his neck, the bear had torn off everything. There were teeth marks in the cranium. A muscle was detached from his right eye, where there was a blowout fracture. He had broken ribs. His body was pockmarked with deep lacerations and puncture wounds.

When a bear attacks defensively, it behaves like a nipping dog. The bites are quick, deep and incessant. But in fighting to shield Jenna, Johan had enraged the bear, so that each bite became a shake, extending some puncture wounds into longer, ragged gashes. The bear's jaws were so strong that its teeth plunged deep enough to tear connective tissue from muscle. The teeth stopped only at the bone.

Johan was also at risk for a fatal infection from bacteria in a bear's mouth He was given a tetanus shot and started on Rocephin, an antibiotic favored in treating bear attacks.

He was relieved to be off the mountain, to know that Jenna was safe and would soon be arriving at the hospital.

Thank you. Thank you so much. He kept thanking the hospital staff because it was all he could do. The bright lights and hovering doctors felt familiar, reminiscent of Scripps Memorial Hospital in La Jolla, where he worked. And he was clean, the blood and dirt removed.

How had he ever created so much trouble for everyone? He was sorry for that. He never thought of himself as deserving so much attention, especially from complete strangers.

X-rays and CT scans confirmed that his spine was broken in two places: at the base of his skull and at the prominence below his neck. The news unnerved him. This could mean paralysis. If he lived, would he walk again? Would he ever return to his favorite activity, running?

By the time Jenna was taken into the Kalispell emergency room, the medical staff had decided to send Johan to Harborview. His injuries were too complicated for Kalispell. As attendants wheeled her in, they brought the two gurneys side by side. Jenna had a jagged laceration on the right side of her face from her mouth to her chin. She also had a deep wound on the right shoulder and one on the back of her head.

They unstrapped her head, but her neck was too sore for her to look at him directly. Out of the corner of an eye, she saw his bandages. She started to cry.

"Thank you," Jenna said, for saving her life, and then, "I'm sorry."

AT Harborview, Johan lost himself in a whirl of exams, tests and X-rays. He stared at the array of IV hangers on tracks dangling overhead and waited for surgery. He closed his eyes, his head wrapped in bloody bandages, and when he opened them again, his wife, Marilyn, was standing there. She had caught the last flight out of San Diego and taken a shuttle to the hospital. It was midnight.

"I'm sorry," he said, starting to cry.

"There's nothing to be sorry about." She reached for his hand.

Johan believed that he had hurt Marilyn, hurt her because he hadn't been able to protect their daughter, hurt her because Jenna was still at the hospital in Kalispell, 350 miles away, hurt her because he, too, was hurt. He felt accountable.

"I don't have my gift for you," he said. Her birthday had been two days earlier. Earlier in the trip, he and Jenna had bought her some photographs of the Grand Tetons at an art fair in Jackson, Wyo., but they were in the truck and the truck was in Montana.

Marilyn started to cry. "You are my present."

The nurses left the room.

"Is Jenna OK?" he asked.

"Yes." She didn't want to worry him.

"I was fighting for her," he said. "I tried to protect her."

"It's all right," she said.

The emergency room staff brought in a heater blanket, known as a bear hugger, and gave it to Marilyn. She wrapped herself in it and continued to hold his hand.

I'm safe now, he thought. It wasn't until 3 a.m. that he was rolled into an operating room. The surgery lasted eight hours. Wherever the bear had bit him, the surgical team assessed the damage and, whenever possible, removed traces of contamination and cleaned the edges of the wound, cut away dead tissue, cauterized blood vessels and, most important, left his wounds open for daily monitoring and cleaning.

Afterward, a plastic surgeon consulted with Marilyn. He warned her again about the risk of infection.

She broke down. On the way from their home to the airport the night before, she had seen on the side of a freight train a sketch of the grim reaper. It was an image she wouldn't forget.

AS Johan lay on his back in intensive care, wet bloody gauze on his head, saline rolling down his neck, he thought through a haze of helplessness how much he wanted to be normal again. He wanted to run, stretch his legs and feel his body working in easy motion.

He knew the first obstacle was his fractured neck. Every time he was moved — for X-rays, for surgery — he feared the worst. Please be careful, he said.

He had a fracture of the second cervical vertebra, often called a hangman's fracture. It was in the same part of the neck that Christopher Reeve broke. Johan's fracture had five distinct breaks, the probable result of the bear shaking his skull. He also had a fracture of the sixth and seventh cervical vertebrae that was even worse. On film, it looked as if someone had tried to push one vertebra onto the other, causing a misalignment that could irreversibly damage his spinal cord.

For such fractures, there were two treatments: fusing the bones in a surgical procedure or wearing a halo. From the beginning, Johan insisted on a halo. He had worked with patients with upper spine fusions. He had seen how limited their range of motion was. He considered it nothing less than a lifelong disability.

But a halo gave him hope. Fractures could heal, scar tissue could serve as cartilage and, in time, if it worked, he could be himself again. His orthopedist agreed. Fusion would be their fallback position.

Johan was happy when an orthopedics team brought in the shoulder harness, halo ring and supporting rods. They pulled the curtain around his bed, propped him up and started to set screws into his skull.

The pain was instantaneous. Johan gasped. They had forgotten to apply lidocaine, a numbing solution.

They backed out the screws and gave him four injections: two above the eyebrows and two behind the ears. Then they torqued the screws into his skull to 8 inch-pounds of pressure. The pain was far beyond the reach of the lidocaine. Johan thought he heard bones crack. It was a feeling he'd always remember His head felt as if his skull would split like a walnut. Then came a raging headache, a feeling of claustrophobia and panic attacks.

The best he could do was count his birds. Back home, Johan bred exotics in aviaries outside his house. He imagined how he might pair them up. He considered genetic tables and color mutations, the more difficult and complicated the better, anything to get his mind out of the moment.

But the moment never ended.

LYING in bed, soothed by the Ativan, Johan watched the sweep of the second hand on a wall clock to his right, then the minutes and the hours. He became untethered and drifted and slept and dreamed, certain that the day had turned to night, and the night to day — but only an hour would have passed, sometimes just 15 minutes. A day took a week, tomorrow forever.

As helpless as he felt, lying in bandages, unable to move, he knew that everything was happening for the best. Call it stoic optimism. It was something he'd learned growing up in Amsterdam, where the boys in the neighborhood teased him and the jokes turned to fights. He stood his ground and never let anyone know how much the punches hurt. The experience toughened him, taught him to be resourceful and adaptable, to focus on what he had and not what he lacked.

Marilyn buoyed his spirits with her steadiness. She had taken a leave of absence from the high school where she taught, and she adapted to life at Harborview. When Johan craved something fresh to eat, she walked to Pike Place Market and bought blueberries and blackberries. She held his hand the day that Nicholas Vedder, chief of plastic surgery, introduced himself and explained how he planned to reconstruct his scalp.

"We need to remove the latissimus muscle," Vedder said, "and transplant it to cover your skull."

Johan knew this meant the latissimus dorsi, a long muscle on the back that extends from the armpit to the hip. The transplanted muscle would provide its own active blood circulation.

"And our success rate is around 95%," Vedder said. He also mentioned the risks: excessive blood loss, complications from the anesthesia and, of course, clotting that could lead to the loss of the transplant.

Johan reached for Vedder's hand and squeezed it. He was grateful to be alive and to know that his daughter was all right.

"Good luck," he said. "I trust you."

Vedder checked his schedule. He had an opening in the morning.

VEDDER began by making a 3-inch incision just in front of Johan's right ear, where he found a small artery and vein network known as the superficial temporal. For three hours he worked, separating the vessels from the dense and fibrous tissue that surrounded them.

Meanwhile, the surgical team prepared Johan's skull, which for five days had gone unprotected and exposed. Grinding it with a burr until it began to bleed, they brought it back to life.

Now Vedder cut along Johan's back. Slowly separating the latissimus dorsi from connective tissue that held it to his rib cage, the team lifted this flank steak-like muscle from Johan. Vedder dissected the connecting subscapular artery and vein.

The clock was running. The team had two hours to reinfuse the muscle with blood or it would die. They flushed it with blood thinner, bathed it in an icy saline slush and stretched it like taffy over Johan's scalp. The contour wasn't perfect, but Vedder knew that as it atrophied from disuse, the muscle would conform to the bony surface of the skull.

An 8-foot-tall surgical microscope was wheeled in. Looking through a lens that makes a human hair look like rope, Vedder connected the subscapular vessels to the superficial temporal vessels. Each is no wider in diameter than a cocktail straw. Each took 20 stitches. As Vedder pulled them together, the blood vessels bunched up as if they'd been hemmed with a gathering stitch. The bunching would act as a seal.

Then Vedder removed the clamps. Blood from Johan's carotid artery pulsed through the array of vessels, then infused the muscle. A Doppler probe beside the vein picked up the whooshing sound, like gusts of wind. For the next week it would serve as an audio-warning system. Silence would mean a clot had formed and the transplant was in jeopardy.

Vedder and his team covered the muscle with skin from Johan's right thigh and stapled it in place. Johan Otter had a new scalp.

Ten hours had passed. He awoke in recovery and was soon wheeled into what the hospital called the Tropicana Room, heated to 80 degrees. Anything colder might make the blood vessels constrict and the blood clot.

Johan lay sweating under a single sheet. He painted pictures in his mind of Glacier National Park and the Grand Tetons. How he loved that stretch of highway from Jackson Hole, Wyo., to Yellowstone National Park where the Rocky Mountains rose from the open plain in jagged grandeur.

Would he ever see it again?

"DAD, I need to thank you for saving my life."

He looked up into Jenna's face. He remembered thinking how healthy she looked, and she was smiling. He had expected worse.

Jenna had flown in from Kalispell the day before. Marilyn had met her at the airport gate, where they held each other for the first time since the attack. Jenna made a joke about how good she looked, what with her swollen face, her arm in a sling, her back in a brace, holding a cane and walking with a limp. Her mother smiled.

You don't need to thank me, Johan said, but her words made him proud. They told him that she understood what he had tried to do, that there was no recrimination or blame, no "why did you take me hiking there?"

Johan was transferred to a private room. He had grown accustomed to it all — the intrusions, the tests, the constant interruptions — and he was making progress. He walked on his own. He watched music videos on television and tried to exercise his legs.

His only setback occurred during another surgery, when the ophthalmologist couldn't find the torn muscle behind his right eye. It had contracted too deeply into his skull. But Johan refused to be discouraged.

Not that life as a patient was simple. Being dependent on others never was, but Johan managed. Perhaps his stoical nature helped. Perhaps his inherent optimism. Perhaps it was his experience as a physical therapist or his training as a marathon runner.

Or maybe it was the spreading reputation that he was the man who had thrown himself in front of a grizzly bear to save his daughter. As his story circulated in the hospital, staffers marveled and wondered if they could make the same sacrifice.

On Sept. 9, 15 days after the attack and just hours before a hospital plane would fly him and Marilyn home to San Diego, Harborview arranged a press conference. From the beginning, Johan's story had caught the attention of the media. Bear attacks always do, and initially neither Johan nor Marilyn had wanted to talk. Now that he was doing better, they hoped to shut down speculation and curiosity by letting the story out.

Johan sat in a wheelchair, still confined by the halo, and answered questions. Marilyn knew he was something of a ham, and when the bright lights and cameras finally shut down, he turned to Vedder.

"How did I do?" he asked.

"You did wonderful," the surgeon said.

Close to 800 newspapers and TV stations picked up the story. Howard Stern declared Johan, because he had fought a grizzly, a legitimate "bad ass." Oprah, Ellen, Montel and Maury were soon calling.

Five days later, he and Jenna went on the "Today" show and "Good Morning America," and the more he told the story of the attack, the more he found himself being cast as a hero for taking on a bear. It was a role he assumed with a curious combination of modesty and pride.

"A good attitude will only get you so far."

Johan listened. No one had said this to him before. He was back at Scripps Memorial Hospital, but instead of walking the halls as an administrator, he was a patient.

"More has to happen. Like a lot of luck and healing," said Scott Barttelbort, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon who had been asked by Scripps' chief medical officer to check on Johan. The patient, he said, was "one of our own"

Barttelbort's exam begun with the scalp. Johan recalled how soft the doctor's hands were.

A beautiful reconstruction, Barttelbort thought, but as he slowly tallied the wounds, he came to realize how severe this mauling had been. Twenty-eight lacerations, 28 opportunities for infection, which didn't even count the flap, the torn eye muscle and the fractured neck. Recovery would be more complicated than anyone could imagine.

Johan found Barttelbort's starkly pragmatic words strangely comforting. He liked Barttelbort, recognized his determined and knowledgeable manner and could see that the doctor took an interest in him as a person, not just a clinical case.

Scripps scheduled more surgeries. During the first, a reconstructive eye specialist found and reattached Johan's torn eye muscle. The white and the purple orchids in his room had never looked better.

A new set of X-rays, CT scans and MRIs confirmed that the halo had stabilized the vertebrae in his neck. But Johan knew his trauma was not just physical

Disassociation had become his protection. Nightmares lurked beneath each day's progress. He kept them at bay by focusing on his life, on Jenna and on the good that had befallen them. One day, a psychiatrist came into his room for a consultation and noted that Johan appeared a bit "too happy," that his affect, slightly hypomanic, was "mildly inappropriate."

"I have had a lot of visitors," Johan told him, adding, "I do not want anybody going away from here feeling bad."

But by trying to make others around him feel comfortable, the psychiatrist concluded, Johan put on too many smiles, which could easily dissolve into tears.

Barttelbort was also concerned about Johan, who seemed to expect too much of himself. Barttelbort wondered if it was a problem that Johan was being attended to by co-workers and didn't feel comfortable enough to let his guard down. Or that Johan had been cast as the courageous fighter of the bear and defender of his daughter.

Probably it was a little of everything.

AFTER nearly two weeks of daily wound management, Barttelbort decided it was safe to start closing some of Johan's deeper lacerations, a process that required every puncture and tear to be enlarged, essentially made worse, in order for them to be sewn shut.

Heal and disappear were Barttelbort's goals, for he knew that each visible scar would remind Johan of the attack, make him self-conscious and slow his integration into the world. He also knew that Johan was wearing down, so he worked quickly in the operating room, cutting and cleaning, judging how good the tissue was, how efficient the circulation, before closing each wound.

As the surgery wore on, Barttelbort knew he was exacting a toll. After six hours, nearly twice as long as expected, Johan woke up in the recovery room exhausted. Four days later he got up in the middle of the night, shivering, the first sign of an infection. Three weeks after the attack, he was still fighting the grizzly. By morning, he had a temperature of 101. Barttelbort put him back on wound care and reopened the wounds that looked the reddest and least healthy.

Johan was discouraged and scared. He knew too much not to be. His infection, known as methicillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus, occurs primarily in hospitals and nursing homes and kills more than 60,000 people a year. Fortunately, tests revealed that it hadn't spread to his neck or skull, where he was most vulnerable.

Still, as Barttelbort watched Johan — with his halo, a patch on his eye, three suction machines purring away at his open wounds, with his multiple lacerations, a reconstructed scalp and a raw right thigh — he knew everything could fall apart in an instant.

But Johan battled back. A powerful antibiotic, vancomycin, delivered by way of a long catheter running from his arm to his heart, knocked back the infection, and on a Saturday, Sept. 24, four weeks and two days after the bear attack, he was discharged from Scripps. Marilyn had ordered a hospital bed for the living room, and as he lay there watching television, sleeping, slowly walking around, he came to realize what the grizzly had cost him.

There were trails he had hoped to hike in Glacier. There was his ambition to run in the Boston Marathon. There was his strawberry-blond hair, the muscle on his back, his daughter who was already away at UC Irvine. There was any illusion that life was predictable.

As he looked around, he saw other moments that he could not control, moments that can ruin expectations and tear apart all plans.

When his halo came off in November, he found himself crying alone in the car one day. He was scared to be normal and afraid that with the halo gone, he was more vulnerable than ever.

In January, he went back to work and found steady reminders of life's fragility. During the first week, a colleague died. At the funeral, Johan saw himself in the casket.

Slowly, though, he found his confidence. He started to run again and to think more about the future. One weekend, Jenna came home from school. They went shopping and, for the first time, they didn't mention the bear. They grew proud of their scars.

In the spring, he was invited to Kalispell to a banquet for the helicopter service that rescued him from the mountain. Before dinner, he took the stage and gave the opening prayer.

"Thank you, God, for giving me the opportunity to give this blessing for these individuals you brought to our rescue," he spoke into the microphone. "Many of these people here are my true friends. Please guide their hand to reach and touch many more lives."

In June, he ran in San Diego's Rock 'n' Roll marathon, finishing in 3 hours, 39 minutes and 48 seconds. But it was nine minutes too slow to qualify for Boston. The next day he was depressed.

The bear still had him.

LAST summer, 11 months after the attack, Johan returned to Glacier National Park and set out again on the trail where he and Jenna had encountered the grizzly. He wanted to see Grinnell Glacier. Marilyn joined him, as did Gary Moses, one of the rangers who helped rescue him.

Johan wore the same running shoes that he had had on during the attack. He carried the same camcorder. As he hiked through the woods, a wave of familiarity swept over him. Past Lake Josephine, the sound of waterfalls in the distance broke the stillness. He remembered how quiet it had been when he and Jenna had passed through here, when all they heard was the wind and the water.

He took photos of wildflowers, marveled at the scale of the park and, as the trail rose in a series of switchbacks, he pointed to a moose walking below in the shallows of Grinnell Lake, its wake cutting a perfect V in the turquoise water.

He looked at the surrounding mountains. "It's cool that we survived."

He began to recount the story. Here is where I wanted to take another picture. Here is where Jenna grew impatient with me. Here is where I took that last shot of her.

He started to cry.

"I'm a little surprised at how emotional this is," he said. "I don't know why."

He paused to gaze out upon a field of ankle-high wildflowers, the pink-purple tufts and candlestick blooms bending in a gust. In the distance stood a thick, ragged patch of alder scrub and elfin spruce.

"You know there's a grizzly out there," he said, almost in awe. After the attack, the National Park Service had determined that the grizzly was acting defensively and did not destroy it.

At the scene of the attack, Johan and Moses climbed down to the ledge where they had waited for the rescue helicopter. Before them stretched the great Grinnell Valley in all its immensity and silence. Zephyrs cut across the lake, its surface changing color in the wind and the shadows of the passing clouds. "It may seem weird to say this," he said, "but I am glad that this is beautiful. It makes me feel that the battle was worthy."

They continued along the trail, and at an overlook of the valley, he held the camcorder to his eye and captured the scenery. "OK, Jenna," he said into its microphone, "this is what we missed."

On the way back, he stopped again at the ledge. There was no bear. It was gone.

"It's done," he said.

thomas.curwen@latimes.com

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About this article

The accounts in this are drawn from extended interviews over a span of 18 months with Johan, Marilyn and Jenna Otter. Additional interviews were conducted with the following individuals:

At Kalispell Regional Medical Center: Lori Alsbury, Dr. Larry Iwersen, Jim Oliverson, Dr. Scott Rundle and Dr. Keri Thorn.

At Harborview Medical Center: Dr. Christopher Allan, Dr. Arash Jian-Amadi, Dr. Carlo Bellabarba, Susan Gregg-Hanson, Chad Hiner, Elizabeth Lowry, Dr. Nicholas Vedder, Dr. Lisa McIntyre and Enid Moore.

At Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla: Dr. Scott Barttelbort, Dr. Brent Eastman, Gary Fybel, Lisa Ohmstede, Dr. Arthur Perry, Dr. Robert Singer, Chris Van Gorder and Dr. Erik Westerlund.

Additional information came from Johan Otter's medical reports from Harborview Medical Center and Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla.

Record Online - August 03, 2005

Bear attacks camper near Port Jervis

MONTAGUE, N.J. -- State fish and wildlife workers have trapped and killed a bear responsible for injuring a sleeping camper along the Appalachian Trail at High Point State Park.

State officials notified the public about the attack on Monday, more than two weeks after it happened.

A spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Protection said Tuesday that delayed notice of the attack from the park and the need to finish an investigation caused officials to hold off making an announcement.

Location of High Point Park

The male camper, whose name was not disclosed, was attacked around 6:30 a.m. on July 13 when a bear bit his leg and tried to drag him along with his sleeping bag, said DEP spokeswoman Karen Hershey.

The camper was part of a group from Pennsylvania that was spending a few days at the park.

Hershey said the bear left marks on the camper, but she would not discuss the camper's injuries further, citing a department policy to withhold information on bear attack victims.

State workers on Wednesday set a trap for the bear at the shelter where the camper had been sleeping. Two days later, the trap caught a 142-pound, 5-year-old female bear that was later identified as the bear that attacked the camper.

After the bear was tranquilized, it was shot and killed by a state biologist.

The attack caused the park to close the shelter and nearby sections of the Appalachian Trail for several days during the investigation.

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