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.
"They should all be destroyed!"
Bet you wished you had, had a gun.
Pardon my question, but have you ever personally used or witnessed the use of the "bear spray" to deter an angry Grizzly sow with cubs? Could you describe the circumstances and perhaps wind direction relative to the parties involved.
Curious because I'm planning my move to Idaho or Wyoming next spring and need to know the brand so that I can give away my .45-70 Gov. lever gun.
How well do you think it would work on humans, relative to "civilian" pepper spray? I have a daughter going to college where nasty critters are known to occassionally attack
Yes, please.
How far away are they from the bear?
Still, I'd want something a bit stronger anyway.
Kind of amazing that we take it for granted these days that a university campus is a very likely place to get jumped/raped/murdered in.
Wrong! That might work for a black bear, but it is definitely the wrong approach for a grizzly in this instance. They surprised this bear, with the usual result.
Bore hunting in Afganistan, silverback with 8 inck tusks, .300 Win Mag.....4 solid shots during the charge, 3 more from the guide, a 100 yard charge ended about 6 feet away. Mean doesn't even begin to describe a beast that tuff.....
"Going into bear country unarmed is dangerous and foolish."
Thanks to our gun hating politicians, if you're in a national park, you have no choice.
Lots of advice about pistols here..personally I carry a shotgun. Always at the ready.
Uh... there are no grizzlies in the Santa Ynez Forest that I am aware of - and grizzly protection was not the intent. Did I say it was? If I were planning to hike in grizzly territory I would pack something to stop it, or at least slow it down - a Mini-30 with a couple 30-round clips would be my weapon of choice.
The question is what would give a guarantee of safety, not what would do the job.
Like I said, if the question is "what can give you a guarantee of safety against a bear attack," the answer is "a good hit with a big-game rifle, and sufficient distance."
They make nice rugs...
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