At Least It Didn’t Rape Him – IOTW Report

At Least It Didn’t Rape Him

Monday, 3 October 2016, 15:30 BFH Uncategorized 42

Guy survives 2 attacks by same bear.

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Hello everyone.
Thought I should share yesterday morning’s Grizzly incident.

I took an early morning hike in the Madison valley to scout for elk. Knowing that bears are common throughout southwest Montana, I hollered out “hey bear” about every 30 seconds so as to not surprise any bears along the trail.

About three miles in, I stepped out into an open meadow and hollered again. A few more steps and I spotted a sow Grizzly bear with cubs on the trail at the upper end of the meadow. The sow saw me right away and they ran a short distance up the trail. But suddenly she turned and charged straight my way. I yelled a number of times so she knew I was human and would hopefully turn back. No such luck. Within a couple seconds, she was nearly on me. I gave her a full charge of bear spray at about 25 feet. Her momentum carried her right through the orange mist and on me.

I went to my face in the dirt and wrapped my arms around the back of my neck for protection. She was on top of me biting my arms, shoulders and backpack. The force of each bite was like a sledge hammer with teeth. She would stop for a few seconds and then bite again. Over and over. After a couple minutes, but what seemed an eternity, she disappeared.

Stunned, I carefully picked myself up. I was alive and able to walk so I headed back down the trail towards the truck 3 miles below. As I half hiked and jogged down the trail, I glanced at my injuries. I had numerous bleeding puncture wounds on my arms and shoulder but I knew I would survive and thanked god for getting me through this. I hoped the bleeding wasn’t too significant. I really didn’t want to stop to dress the wounds. I wanted to keep moving and put distance between us.

About five or ten minutes down the trail, I heard a sound and turned to find the Griz bearing down at 30 feet. She either followed me back down the trail or cut through the trees and randomly came out on the trail right behind me. Whatever the case, she was instantly on me again. I couldn’t believe this was happening a second time! Why me? I was so lucky the first attack, but now I questioned if I would survive the second.

Again I protected the back of my neck with my arms, and kept tight against the ground to protect my face and eyes. She slammed down on top of me and bit my shoulder and arms again. One bite on my forearm went through to the bone and I heard a crunch. My hand instantly went numb and wrist and fingers were limp and unusable. The sudden pain made me flinch and gasp for breath. The sound triggered a frenzy of bites to my shoulder and upper back. I knew I couldn’t move or make a sound again so I huddled motionless. Another couple bites to my head and a gash opened above my ear, nearly scalping me. The blood gushed over my face and into my eyes. I didn’t move. I thought this was the end. She would eventually hit an artery in my neck and I would bleed out in the trail… But I knew that moving would trigger more bites so a laid motionless hoping it would end.

She suddenly stopped and just stood on top of me. I will never forgot that brief moment. Dead silence except for the sound of her heavy breathing and sniffing. I could feel and her breath on the back of my neck, just inches away. I could feel her front claws digging into my lower back below my backpack where she stood. I could smell the terrible pungent odor she emitted. For thirty seconds she stood there crushing me. My chest was smashed into the ground and forehead in the dirt. When would the next onslaught of biting began. I didn’t move.
And then she was gone.

I tried to peek out without moving but my eyes were full of blood and I couldn’t see. I thought that if she came back a third time I would be dead, so I had to do something. Staying in position on the ground, I slowly reached under my chest to grab at the pistol I was unable to get to earlier. I felt I needed something to save my life. The pistol wasn’t there. I groped around again but nothing. I wiped the blood from one eye and looked around.
No bear.

The pistol and holster were lying five feet to my left. The bear’s ferocious bites and pulling had ripped the straps from the pack and the holster attached to it. Now trashed, that backpack may have helped prevent many more serious bites on my back and spine.
I picked everything up and moved down the trail again. I couldn’t believe I had survived two attacks. Double lucky!
Blood was still dripping off my head and both elbows and my shirt was soaked to the waist and into my pants. But a quick assessment told me I could make it another 45 minutes to the truck without losing too much blood.
I continued the jog just wanting to put more distance between that sow and I.

At the trailhead was one other vehicle. I really hoped that person didn’t run into the same bear.
I snapped a couple quick photos and a video of my wounds, laid some jackets over the truck seat and headed for town. I stopped a rancher along the way and asked him to make a call to the hospital. When I got into cell service, I made a quick call to my girlfriend to ask how her morning was going, before freaking her out and asking her to bring me a change of clean clothes to the hospital.
Another call to 911 and I gave the operator a quick run down of my injuries and asked her to call the hospital and give them a heads up that I was ten minutes out.
Moments later I was met at the front door by the doctor, nurse and an officer. I had to ask the officer to open the door, put my truck in park, and unbuckle my seat belt. My left arm was useless. He was impressed I had taken the effort to buckle.
Once inside, the x-rays revealed only a chip out of the ulna bone in my forearm. Following was eight hours of stitching to put me back together. Most were arm and shoulder punctures and tears. A 5″ gash along the side of my head will leave a nasty scar, but I’m hoping my balding doesn’t come on too quickly and leave that one exposed. 🙂
And finally, this morning, numerous deep bruises and scrapes are showing up from the bites that didn’t quite break the skin. Dark bruising in the shape of claws, line across my lower back and butt where the bear stood on me. Also a few more chest bruises and facial abrasions from being smashed and slammed into the ground.

Not my best day, but I’m alive.
So thankful I’m here to share with all of you. 🙂
In a couple weeks I will have to clean out the truck a little better. My girlfriend says it looks like I had gutted an elk in the drivers seat.

Todd Orr. Skyblade Knives.

ht/ bad brad

42 Comments on At Least It Didn’t Rape Him

  3. Irony,

    That was my thought too. And why after the first attack was he not holding the gun in his hand, just in case? Not scolding the guy, but, just wondering.

    Glad he lived…

  8. Just curious, would a good hunting dog have helped the situation to distract the bear? I just got back from an 8 mile walk in the forest with the dog off leash and she treed about 10 squirrels every mile 🙂

  10. “Fuck that pepper spray when he had a pistol. Maybe there’s some kind of law about killing a nursing bear-they can bill me. ”

    The DFG is damn protective of Brown Bears. There was a guy that shot one in Idaho a couple years back that was being charged by the bear. I think he’s still in prison. A Brown Bear can close 50 yards in 3 seconds. If he decided to go with the pepper spray first there was no time to go for his pistol. Average time for a competitive shooter out of a competition holster to first shot is probably a little over a second. A big revolver out of a field holster has got to be a least double that. I sure as hell would have been carrying it in hand after the first attack though.

  14. Gah! I don’t know, but the Madison Valley this time of year and no repellent except a can of bear spray and a pistol?!

    He couldn’t have been more of a target for grizzlies if he’d worn a couple of pork chops around his ankles.

  15. “There was a guy that shot one in Idaho a couple years back that was being charged by the bear. I think he’s still in prison.”

    Couldn’t find that story but I did find numerous quotes from WildLife Officers saying, in essence, self defense is self defense.

    I also read quite a few experienced back woodsmen saying pretty much what you quoted, which is, getting a pistol out in time to stop a charging bear is a gonna be a tough thing to pull off. Several said that they carry a shotgun, at the ready, with slugs, when in bear country.

    I’ll stick with my first thought, which is, I’m not relying on bear repellent spray.

  16. MM, I’ll try and find the Idaho story for you. I remember it was on private property and he reported it to the local DFG. The guides in Alaska pull their pistols as soon as they see Cubs. I’m not disagreeing with what you say. A Bear turd is the last thing I feel like being.

  18. I know myself well enough to know BB that if a bear is closing on me at the speed you described, even if I had my pistol in hand, I’d miss the shot to stop it.

    I also don’t know if I could have the presence of mind to lay still after I had my neck and head chewed up like that.

  23. Like Whitey said – – if you want to see a liberal get severely malled TWICE by a mama grizzly (Sarah Palin?) to within an inch of his life watch THE REVENANT. (It’s actually a great movie.)

  24. I live in the same valley this guy does (near Bozeman). Grizzly bears are part of our lives here and most of us go out prepared like he did. I personally don’t carry pepper spray but I do carry firearms (magnum pistol on the belt and a 40 mm elsewhere). This guy performed great and is alive because of it. FWP understands if we are forced to defend ourselves; it doesn’t happen often but once is too much if it’s me.

  26. This is the most dangerous time to go hiking in bear country. They are trying to fill up on food for their winter snooze. I know that area, and there’s tons of Huckleberry bushes. If you’re standing near a huckleberry bush or something else they like to eat… you’re screwed. PLUS the Huckleberries are ripe right now, add that to a Sow, and cubs… that’s a disaster. I’m surprised he didn’t know better. WHY didn’t he have the gun in his hand when entering an open prairie like that?

  27. He never says what caliber of pistol he had with him. I can tell you from experience that nothing less than a .44mag will do for grizzly. .45cal or 9mil just piss them off,hell ,.357s have been known to bounce off their skills at point blank range. If it was not a .44mag at that point after the second attack he probably that something was better than nothing.

  29. I got a chance to hunt mule deer in Wyoming a few years ago. The guy who invited me loaned me his wife’s 41 magnum revolver to keep at all times. He said if I shoot a deer to wait until someone else gets there before going to it. Someone holds a rifle while the other guts the deer. He also said if a bear gets within 50 yards to shoot it.

  30. What was cool was walking down the sidewalk in downtown Cody with that pistol hanging on my waist (open carry). I even walked through the local Walmart carrying. We ate lunch at Buffalo Bill’s hotel. While we sat at the table some tourists came in and sat next to us. The lady’s eyes bugged out when she looked down and saw the pistol in my holster just a few feet away….

  32. Bears spend most of their time eating, bulking up, right before the big winter hibernation, and they don’t like any interruptions then. Very dangerous time.

  33. @Cate, sorry I didn’t read the other comments before posting just about the same thing you said about the bears eating. It’s a fact.
    🙂
    Still haven’t read all of the above. Working up from the bottom.

  34. @eternal cracker p, there are bear dogs that are bred for that. Usually two or more dogs are used. Sometimes the dogs get slashed and killed. It’s a crap shoot with grizzlies.

  37. @Jethro, I don’t know if Trail Town is part of the museum, it may be.
    It’s where John “Jeremiah Johnson” Johnston is buried, along with some other famous mountain men. They moved his remains there right around the time the movie Jeremiah Johnson came out.
    Lots of old relics, wagons, firearms, log cabins, and such there. There’s an old saloon set up just like it was the days of old.

  40. Unruly… THE BEST collection of Winchester Rifles and firearms in general, is in the Firearm Museum in Cody WY. I could spend hours there. Who cares about that Buffalo Bill Museum, which is in the same building. Yeah, that’s worth a half hour run through.. the pay dirt is the Firearm Museum. It’s mind blowing. I hope you got a chance to see that. 🙂

  41. Cate, I only got to see Old Trail Town. My dog, Buddy, had to wait in the truck so I only had a short time in the morning to check things out.
    I’ll have to stop there next time I head up to Montana and pass through Cody. The election results will determine when that will be. 😉 Thanks for the tip.

  42. I love Bears. Especially grizzlies. Amazing animals. However, I would never want to visit an area where I might meet one, unless the bear was in a well built habitat, double fenced to keep people from close encounters.

    I love nature walks, but prefer places that I am fairly certain that the wild life does not view me as fast food delivered.

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