Posted on 05/05/2026 9:54:17 AM PDT by sopo
A Maryland man was the first to come across one of two hikers seriously hurt in a Monday afternoon Yellowstone National Park grizzly attack, hearing the man call for help before coming across the man “tore up pretty bad.”
“I was hiking up Mystic Falls Trail when I saw bear prints in the mud,” Craig Lerman told Cowboy State Daily on Tuesday morning. “I kept walking a little further and saw a bloody hat with a watch torn off.”
Lerman, from Baltimore, was hiking on the Mystic Falls Trail when he was the first person on the scene after the grizzly attacked a pair of hikers.
Lerman kept hiking until he found the first victim, a severely injured 28-year-old man, lying on the trail.
“He heard me coming and started saying, ‘Help. Help me,’” Lerman said. "At first, I thought it was a prank or joke. Kids playing games. But when I got close to him, I knew this was a serious matter.”
According to Lerman, the man was “tore up pretty bad” with cuts all over his face, back, legs, and stomach with “flesh next to him.” The man had already managed to call 911 on his blood-covered phone.
“I called 911 from my phone and took over the call from there,” Lerman said. “I was scared the bear was going to come back around, so I just kept my head on a swivel.”
The dispatcher told Lerman to focus on keeping the man conscious and to turn him onto his side so he didn’t choke on his own blood, while responders coordinated a response.
“He kept talking to me the entire time,” Lerman said. “I ended up giving him my T-shirt (because) he said he was cold and wet, so I just laid it over him and reassured him help was on the way.”
The official first responders were two National Park Service rangers who reached the scene on foot, he said. Soon after, a helicopter arrived with more personnel to evacuate both bear attack to the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center.
“I never saw the other guy,” Lerman said. “He was 14, and I believe that was his brother, but I don’t know that. His mom was there, but not on that trail. She was on the phone with him, trying to keep him calm.”
Lerman described the experience as “scary, brutal,” and “not something I’ve ever seen before.”
‘One Or More Bears' Yellowstone officials reported Tuesday morning that the incident occurred on the Mystic Falls Trail near Old Faithful. The victims may have been attacked by “one or more bears.”
National Park Service emergency services personnel responded to the victims, and the incident “remains under investigation,” the agency report. No additional information was provided.
Pastor and former Idaho Falls resident Travis Guse shared information he received about the incident on Facebook. He was contacted by David Jenkins, an associate pastor at Lake Church in Arlington, Texas.
“Two (men) from his church were up in Yellowstone with their mom when they were mauled by a grizzly bear,” Guse wrote. “The kids were life-flighted to the hospital in Idaho Falls, and the hospital still had my contact on file from when I was a pastor there over a decade ago.”
When Cowboy State Daily reached out to Guse, he confirmed he had made the post but declined to comment further.
Jenkins confirmed that the victims are members of the church’s congregation and had been taken to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center for treatment. He also declined to comment further.
Cowboy State Daily reached out to Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center to get an update on the victims’ condition, but hadn’t received a response by the time of publication.
Stimulus, Response This is the first human-grizzly incident in Yellowstone in 2026 and the second to result in injury in the last five years.
The previous incident happened in September 2025 when a man hiking on the Turbid Lake Trail near the northeastern shore of Yellowstone Lake was attacked by a grizzly and suffered injuries on his arm and chest.
Based on what he could see at the scene, Lerman believes there were two grizzlies in the vicinity of the Mystic Falls Trail on Monday. He based his assumption on the two sets of footprints he observed on the muddy trail.
“There were two sets from a bigger and smaller bear,” he said. “The conclusion was that it was a mom protecting her cub, but that’s an assumption.”
Sow grizzlies with cubs usually emerge from hibernation in late April.
Mothers are fiercely protective of their cubs and will attack with little to no provocation, which can lead to serious and potentially lethal attacks on humans in spring and early summer.
In May 2024, Shayne Patrick Burke was attacked by a mother grizzly while hiking on Signal Mountain in Grand Teton National Park. He survived but was seriously injured.
NPS personnel and officials with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service usually categorize these attacks as defensive rather than aggressive.
That means it’s unlikely the grizzly responsbile for this attack will be removed from the park’s population, but there’s been no official information other than that the investigation into the incident is ongoing.
Lerman didn’t know the status of either victim but hopes they are recovering at the Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center.
“I’d like to eventually know if they survived,” he said.
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
Especially when combined with a 10MM or a S&W 460 or 500...
You can choose to believe whatever you want.
The chart is from the paper, peer reviewed, written by Tom Smith. Tom Smith is the major bear spray proponent. He published, along with Stephen Herrero, the papers on bear spray efficacy and firearms efficacy, on which the inappropriate comparisons of bear spray to firearms are based. As I recall, they were published in the same journal. Tom Smith, at least at one point (recorded in an interview) said the papers were never meant to compare the efficacy of bear spray to the efficacy of firearms. At other points he has said or written things which sound like the opposite, though maybe not quite so clearly.
I should mention that handguns appear to be more effective than long guns, because handguns tend to stay with the person, whereas long guns are often not available. The difference shows up in Tom’s efficacy paper on firearms.
Here is a link to the abstract of the paper the chart is from. Tom Smith graciously sent me a full copy so I could write about it.
https://wildlife.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jwmg.21958
The co-author of the article is James S. Wilder, who, I recall, was the editor of when the “efficacy” articles about bear spray and firearms were published.
Tom sent me the full article for free, for my use, and the original is behind some sort of paywall. I hesitate to put a complete digital copy out in the wild. I can send the title page if you want that to validate the chart, but if you look closely at the image in this link, it shows “The Journal of Wildlife Management” in the upper right hand corner, which is the bottom slice of page 6 in the article, caught in my screenshot of the page with the chart.
Here is a link to the official report by the Wyoming Fish & Game department. The pistol was in a holster on top of the packs.
It is not known if the bears left the scene or not directly after inflicting the mortal injury on Uptain. No one examined the scene until the next day, about 1330 hours. It is common for bears to leave the scene and return later. In defense of the idea they left after being sprayed, yes they did. Just exactly when is unclear. The report does not mention if any of the elk remains were disturbed by the bears.
Clearly, Uptain was able to walk about 50 yards before collapsing. He was not under attack while doing so.
It is also common for bears to move away for short periods and to come back. We simply do not know a lot of the details about this event. Uptain, for example, was bitten by both bears, but only one bear had evidence of bear spray residue.
The bears were killed at the attack site (yearling trapped, Sow killed charging the responders) on September 16, about 48 hours after the attack, perhaps a little earlier.
The official report came out four months after the attack.
Chucks just dropped a Video on Both Bear Attacks ....
Be careful out There!
Here is a recent article by Wes Siler, who is pretty far left, but is willing to be convinced by the truth.
He talks about his interview with Tom Smith, and talks about what changed his mind on bear spray a few years ago.
Easiest to scroll down to the Bold section header: Fact Two: Bear Spray is Not Effective In A Bear Attack
I think he is a bit over the top with the header, but you might find interesting why he says that.
https://wessiler.substack.com/p/bear-spray-is-a-placebo
Bear Spray a Placebo.
.
He was Killed by disinformation!
.
Thanks Great Read !
When one believes a lie.
That aligns with one’s beliefs.
It is very hard to change.
Spray is a good harassment tool.
Firearms when you want to protect yourself from serious bodily harm or death.
I have been recreating/living in bear country for close to 70 years. Yes, many weeklong back backing trips.
I carry a handgun.
It is common knowledge that one doesn’t not deploy spray against a armed attacker unless backed up by lethal force.
Bears are always armed and have disproportionately physical advantage.
If a bear makes contact, you will have great bodily harm and could die.
All reasons to deploy deadly force.
Thank you for notifying me
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