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.
At 75 yards, how likely would it be that a grizzly would charge you in the first place?
Wacko environmentalists? I doubt it. Not even the really hairy ones.
Yes a real rifle is preferably, but not everyone is realistically going to carry one when they aren't hunting, just hiking. Nor will everyone get it up in time. There is nothing wrong with a handgun for personal protection, and 44 magnums and similar guns will kill bears. In addition, there is a peace of mind factor. I've been on hikes where I encountered bears while unarmed, and though they did not charge, it was not a pleasant experience I can tell you. I'd have felt a lot less helpless with even a .357 or .45, let alone a 30-06.
I would be happy to. In fact if you send me the .45/70 I will send you a can of bear spray by return mail, along with all the bear spray research and anecdotal evidence obtained over the past few years.
"a typical pistol has a very low chance of stopping a grizzly."
Shot placement is everything. A brain shot or heart shot will stop it within a short period of time---the former more quickly than the latter.
Certainly one is better armed with a pistol than with his fists and teeth.
The only good bear is a dead bear.
Okay but I will have to tone it down a bit.
Seems there was this guy who used to hunt male mountain lions for zoos and he had a helper, flex cuffs (no net), a big mean dog, and a pistol.
This guy from the zoo went with him and when they treed the mountain lion, the helper would climb up the tree, saw the limb off, the lion would fall out, the dog would grab the lion by its private parts, the lion would freeze and the the catcher would slip the flex cuffs on the lion and toss him in the back of the truck. After they had caught five lions in this way the man from the zoo asked what the gun was for. The catcher told him his helper insisted he carry the gun. Well the zoo guy saw no reason for the gun until the next lion was treed. Instead of cutting the limb off in time, the lion knocked the helper out of the tree, all the way down he was screaming, "Shoot the dog, shoot the dog".
"Urban" big city campuses haven't been safe for decades. I made a point to carry a large knife going to college in NYC in the 1970's
The evidence is now clear. There have been many cases where a pistol has successfully been used in self defense against both black and grizzley bears. A year or so ago, a hiker in Alaska killed a charging grizzley with a .44 mag, and in the famous Treadwell case, I believe it was a State Trooper that killed one of the killer bears when it came at him, with a .40 cal semi auto.
You ALWAYS have a choice. It's just that sometimes the choice is whether to risk being tried by 12 versus carried by 6
Remember the 11th Commandment: Don't get caught
I'd give that a 8.
To shoot my cousin? ;)
I could have made it an easy 10 but it would have gotten pulled.
Just be grateful she didn't sing it! :)
Yes.
This attack ended that way. If you fight back against a grizzly, with fists, sticks and stones, well.....guess who's going to lose that one?
"A better choice would be a couple of cans of pepper spray."
What? so the bear can season your carcass before he eats it?
... 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.
Well, have you?
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