Father and daughter's hike ended suddenly by grizzly

Seattle Post-intelligencer via HoustonChronicle.com ^ | Sept. 10, 2005 | CAROL SMITH

[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.

[Dustbunny]

I won't go around in bear country without something whose caliber doesn't start with a number of ".4" or greater.

My husband never walks around our property, we are in black bear country, unless he has his.44 with him.

[angkor]

Over the last 30 years I've been to every Nat'l Park in the western 12 contiguous states ... Not a safe environment for families or lone women, IMHO.

In the 90's I did a multi-month tour of the Western parks and up to Alaska.Since there was a lot of solo hiking I did carry bear spray - fully legal in National Parks - but after a while I found myself more and more in the National Forests, often camping at completely vacated campgrounds or in the backcountry. It also was a very dry summer with lots of bears coming down into the populated areas (e.g., woke up one night in the Tetons and there were bears licking my picnic table).

So I decided to buy a Marlin 1894s, reliable lever action .44 mag, 20-inch barrel, all great for the backcountry. Also because it was a rifle there was no problem (at the time) taking it across Canada and up the Alcan (funny, Canadian Customs seized my bear spray at the Montana border on technicalities, but not the Marlin).

In any case I never did use the Marlin for anything beside big-bang plinking, with a later exception back down at a New Mexico Forest Service campground (Abiqui).

There was some obvious partying going on in the nearby picnic area, 200 yards away but "They'll be gone by dusk", so I pulled-in to numbered campsite. Was returning from the restroom, and there was a van suspiciously lingering near my spot. So I opened the door of my truck, pulled the Marlin, and made a show that I was armed. The van took off.

[dljordan]

" Sorry, couldn't resist it, I know you meant rogue."

Doh!!

[Americanchild]

I'm not saying that black bears don't attack people. ( With good reason in many cases!) But eat them? Black bears are not nearly as carnivorous as Grizzlies are.

[ArrogantBustard]

Some parts of Shenandoah National Park are full of black bears, as well.

Concealed means nobody knows you have it.

[ALASKA]

Also, please cite the regs on firearms for the National Park system.

Better judged by 12 than eaten by one..........

[Spktyr]

See post 217. :)

[ctdonath2]

I know a fellow who put a griz that was attacking a fellow hiker to flight with a blast of pepper spray.

Old joke:

When in bear country, tie small bells to your shoes and carry pepper spray to ward off bears.

You can tell what kind of bears are around by examining the droppings. Grizzly droppings contain small bells and smell like peppers.

[Walkingfeather]

Ted Nugent took one down with a 357 in alaska

[montag813]

If I had seen this depicted on TV I would never believe a man could survive such an attack. Incredible.

[ctdonath2]

"If carrying a .22 comforts you, do so. But do not load it, for if you load it you may fire it, and if you fire it you may hit someone, and in doing so annoy him and give him reason to do you harm." - Jeff Cooper (parphrased)

[ctdonath2]

[ctdonath2]

One of these days I'm gonna whip up a batch of "pepper spray chicken wings" just to make the point.

[Conservative4Ever]

Oh you are bad... hee hee

[Spktyr]

er, 225.

[ctdonath2]

That has a lot to do with whether you are hunting the bear or the bear is hunting you.

[ctdonath2]

Yup, was up close and personal to one a couple years ago. My wife dang near walked right into it, save for me saying "Karen, STOP" in a very stern voice. Critter pretty much ignored us ... and I was keenly aware of what wasn't on my hip.

[HolgerDansk]

Since I live part time about 15 miles away from where these maulings occurred, this isn't just an academic question to me. We have both black and brown aka Grizzley bears that pass through our small community on their annual migration between Glacier Park and the Bob aka Great Bear Wilderness. I did a lot of research before coming up with my solution.

Across the river in Glacier National Park, your options are limited to Bear Spray, which is a large (pint) sized container of capsicum pepper spray. These work well for most people, since they're an area weapon it's hard to miss, and the bears do respond to them, usually by running away. However, they also rely on cooperative wind (which you'll get about 75% of the time here) and we have seen bears that back off, then come at you again when you stop spraying.

Pistol rounds won't do the trick against brown aka Grizzley bears. Skull is too thick and they have insulating cartilidge similar to that of a hog. The going wisdom is that you need to have something that's at least .44 caliber, 1600 fps and 300 grain. I'm not convinced even the .454 Causall will get the job done, and I've heard reports of 4-5 rounds of that caliber being needed -- maybe the 500 S&W. The other consideration is that you want to be able to put more than one round on target in less than five seconds. So the larger heavy recoil rounds like .45-70 Government and 500 S&W can be problematic. And what if you miss that first shot?

The compromise I've settled on is a Winchester 94AE Trapper in .44 Magnum. The 16" barrel gets every last bit of performance of the cartridge, and is easy maneuvered in thick brush. Aside from limiting recoil and barrel jump, the .44 Mag is shorter than the .45-70 Gov, so you get nine shots instead of five out of the same magazine. 300 grain castcore extra hard bullets by Federal go in the magazine, though I'm looking at the Cor-Bon stuff. Works for me, YMMV.

[trisham]

Nice. What kind of accuracy does it have?

[Disambiguator]

The real question is this: How well can you keep from flinching while squeezing off full-power .454 Casull rounds from a 2" snubby revolver?

I would imagine that the gun itself is intrinsically accurate enough for it's intended purpose, i.e. self-defense at short ranges. You're not going to put a scope on this one and hunt big game.