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.
I had that feeling. What would give you a real margin of safety? A bazooka?
Doesn't sound like a handgun.
Years ago, back in the '70s, when I did a lot of solo and duo hiking on the Muir Trail and in the Ventana Wilderness in California, I always had a S&W .44 magnum within easy reach. I never had to use it, but I had a close call with a pack of wild pigs with young. I came upon them straddling the trail and immediately retreated. Fortunately I found a rock I could get on top of out of their reach. They had started towards my location when the wind shifted and after a while they simply moved on. There were about 20 of them -- I would not have wanted to be trying to reload (extra ammo was in my pack)while they came at me.
I know a fellow who put a griz that was attacking a fellow hiker to flight with a blast of pepper spray. This was on the Grantite Park Chalet trail in Glacier, a notorious griz location. The stuff works pretty well and is easy to bring into contact with target... you can see the jet of spray very well and just move it a little if you are off target. This is the stuff to carry on all trails in Glacier Park. Outside the park I would recommend carrying a pistol of caliber .357 or larger in addition to pepper spray. Personally I would use the pepper spray first. Grizzle bears are very tough to bring down with a pistol shot.
We just had a brown bear mauling in our village last week. Husband and wife picking berries. Bear got the wife. Husband got three shots in him before bear left with a 300. Wife was minus a buttox and half her scalp and broken jaw and collar bone. She too feels lucky. Husband carried her bleeding body to get medivaced to hospital where they promptly pumped her full of morphine.
Agreed, but you'll notice one or two replies pointed out that a typical pistol has a very low chance of stopping a grizzly.
Whenever i go up to the mountain and i go into areas where bears are known live, i ALWAYS have my 30-06 on me and loaded.. Pepper spray might sting the bears eyes temporarally, but a good 180 grain 30-06 bullet withh put that bear down hard and quick with the right shot placement
Keep them guns loaded boys!
The victim MUST have MINMUM success! The attacking animal MUST have MAXIMUM success!!! The police chiefs of America sez so!(Makes sense don't it?)
Ping
Cute bear
"left with a 300"?
A .22 cal short will work just fine.
Honestly? A lot of distance and a big game repeater rifle. .375 H&H, .50 BMG, .600 Nitro Express, something like that. Bears tend to be sprinters.
Angry bears are a lot like humans on PCP or other such drugs - you can actually cause enough damage for them to die but they keep going until their brains shut down for lack of oxygen. At "hiking through the woods" distances, about the only way to stop them before they get to you and kill you is to destroy the brain, or alternately use something that blows enough limbs off the bear (rocket or contact grenade or something) that it physically cannot pursue you.
I wouldn't go hiking without a 44 Magnum.
That's probably how the British justice system would call it. It sounds like self-defense is basically illegal over there nowadays.
A lot of calibers just bounce off grizzly skulls. .44 Magnum or .50 AE (which IS a Magnum round, I believe; I think it's .50 Magnum redesigned for an autopistol) are both better at penetrating the grizzly's skull than the .45 ACP or .45 GAP, but you still have to watch out for the skull deflecting some shots.
As long as they keep building hiking trails in the wilderness, this will happen on occasion.
They're lucky to be alive - just wasn't their time.
Remember - a 44 magnum pistol only has a fraction of the power of a 30-30, which few would choose to hunt bears with. That said, in a full metal jacket a .357 would do some genuine harm - if you have the nerve to aim carefully, or if you shot it while being mauled...
I think the park service rules are like military regulations - for the guidance of the wise and the strict adherence of fools. When hiking in Glacier, Yellowstone etc, a good concealed handgun could be a very good friend.
In fact, even a 22 can be a good friend. Years ago, when hiking in a National Forest, I returned to my car to find 8 drunk teen-agers sprawled on it. They lowered their bottles and started to surround me when I pulled out my trusty S&W 22-32 kit gun. Having fired thousands of rounds thru it, I had no doubt I could shoot 6 of them in the head. They must have agreed, 'cause they backed off and 'let' me get in my car.
Not all varmits have 4 legs...
In other words, hubby probably got three good body shots into the bear with a .300 Win Mag (rifle) and that *still* didn't kill the bear. The bear left instead of dying.
I won't go around in bear country without something whose caliber doesn't start with a number of ".4" or greater.
There are good loads in 10mm too, though a .44 magnum would probably be optimum. Doesn't sound like he had too much time to resist, but it sure wouldn't have hurt to have it.
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