Posted on 09/11/2005 4:46:29 PM PDT by Archidamus
•As he's mauled by the bear, the marathoner can think only of his youngster's safety
In the split second before he saw the grizzly's fangs, Johan Otter heard his daughter Jenna's startled voice.
"Oh NO!" Jenna Otter, 18, had been hiking just ahead of her dad as they zigzagged up the steep switchbacks of the Grinnell Glacier Trail at Glacier National Park on Aug. 25. As she turned a blind corner just above the tree line, she stumbled into the path of a sow with two cubs.
The mother bear surged straight for the man. Her teeth sank into his right thigh, and her long claws raked his face, shattering his right eye socket.
In the surreal moments that followed, he tried to keep the bear focused on himself.
"Stay with me," he remembers thinking. "Just don't go to Jenna."
And so the bear, and the 43-year-old hospital administrator from Scripps Memorial Hospital, locked in an ancient battle hardwired into each of their genes: Protect your young at all costs. Even your life.
Otter, a marathoner, threw himself 30 feet down an embankment with the bear in pursuit to try to get further away from his daughter. The bear, estimated at about 400 pounds, landed on top of his back.
She had an "out of this world strength," said Otter. "I was like a rag doll, and I weigh 185 pounds." She flung him back and forth. By then, he could feel his spine had fractured. (Doctors would later find five breaks.)
Frantic, he tried to cover his head with his arms, as hikers are warned to do by park rangers.
"I felt her tooth go into my scalp," he said. Then he felt his scalp rip clean away.
Otter recounted his ordeal last week from Harborview Medical Center where surgeons bolted his battered body back together.
With his head clamped in the bear's jaws, he could hear his skull crack. And just as suddenly, he felt the bear release him.
He lay wedged into a stream, on a small embankment 50 feet below the trail. He couldn't move. What he couldn't see was his daughter curled into a fetal position, on a ledge 20-feet above him, her eyes wide open, facing the bear. The bear clamped down — biting first Jenna's face, then her shoulder.
Jenna didn't flinch, her father recounted later. "That's courage."
The bear, finally spent, left the two alone.
The pair, bleeding and shaken, yelled for help and within half an hour, four hikers discovered them.
Jenna Otter was treated at Kalispell Regional Medical Center in Montana, and released in good condition.
Johan Otter was airlifted to Harborview. Despite arriving with his skull exposed and having lost half his blood, he was conscious.
Doctors stabilized him until Dr. Nicholas Vedder and a team of plastic surgeons could transplant a square-foot of thin sheet muscle from his right side to make a new scalp.
Otter was released from Harborview. Doctors have said they're not sure yet how much of his eye function he'll recover, but he can already wiggle his toes, so they're optimistic about his recovery of movement.
The only thing he won't get back, for sure, is hair.
That doesn't matter to Otter. "I'm so lucky," he said.
Wild pigs is tricky creatures. Terrible vision but good noses. And they are smart. They will attack, run away and then circle back and attack again.
I hunted them down in south Texas. Mean suckers when they are riled up. And they always seem p.o'ed.
What a beautiful place.
We need to get a handful of eco-freaks to go up there and retrain those bears.
Well DNR shot both of the bears. The bears didn't really seem to care that much.
I would always carry in the wilderness. Another man is my worst fear. But my automatic, although probably inadequte against this kind of bear, is worth a try.
sing all of the greatest hits by Joan Baez and Joanie Mitchell in quick succession.
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So you try to make the bear sick to it's stomach so it loses it's appetite? I think there's laws against that.
I liked Joan Baez and Joanie Mitchell's music, I just didn't like them.
No, I just sense of humor. I'd root for the bear in that case.
People should definitely be allowed to carry a gun in national parks and other federal land where now prohibited. There have been too many attacks, not only by grizzlies but by mountain lions. A .45 Long Colt should stop a grizzly with a well-placed hit, and it certainly would a cougar.
A 41 or 44 magnum revolver is more than enough to kill a grizzly.
Yep, went for an overnight hike in the mountains behind Santa Barbara (Santa Ynez Forest) with 90+ pounds of German Shepherd - kept other creatures at bay very well.
But scared the crap out of us in the middle of the night suddenly barking in a very loud, hostile manner! :0
I can carry concealed in my local library. Sorry I mean what I say. What makes you think a library is alwys a safe place. Plus how about the to and fro from such library. And really why not. I am no threat to any peace loving law abiding citizen. As a matter of fact I may be the best thing they could have around under certain circumstances.
LOL!!
No, I'm certain that there are places where public buildings are dangerous. Not that many though.
We live in KCMO metro and along the hike and bike trail,I regularly see cat tracks about 50% bigger than a silver dollar.
"Wild pigs always seem p.o'ed."
If you looked like that you would always be p.o'ed too!
Now you know why Pelosi is like she is.
I gave up on Joanie Mitchell when she had the audacity to sign Amazing Grace at a pro-baby killing rally.
Oh, please. Perhaps a dog like that could keep a grizzly occupied for a few minutes while you get the heck out of dodge, but it would probably be the reason the grizzly attacked in the first place. Defense against park wierdos? Certainly.
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