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.
No, so you can defend yourself. Not so the feds can employ more losers to man metal detectors.
"So, what do you think? Should people be allowed to carry weapons in national parks? Would a pistol have been enough to at least scare a grizzly away?"
I have a mixed opinion about this sort of thing. I feel that America needs and should retain a healthy balance of natural wild life preserves and sanctuaries "away" from large populations of people. And people who choose to venture into wild animal territories for fun and sport should stop being so ignorant and lazy about possible encounters with wild animals. I would bring a gun/rifle into the outbacks of Canada and like places in America and probably bring a gun into American camp areas to protect myself from a crazy person(s) more than wild animals and use a mega dose of mace on a charging bear UNDER 400 lbs.
The seemingly clueless and careless people remind me of that joke,
"How many morons does it take to screw in a light bulb(eureka!)."
That's pretty much the bottom line, isn't it.
2-3 inches is sufficiently accurate for your typical "oh, SH**!!!!!!" bear encounter distances.
4" or longer barrel and it should be fine for black bears.
Use soft points in place of hollow points for deeper penetration, bears have thick hides and large muscle mass.
You are right on point. The masses get "Parks" shoved down their throats as something sacred for "the people" but the real agenda is to keep people out of them entirely. Parks is just another word for "government eminent domain for mineral rights." All Federal parks are slated for congressionally approved mineral exploration.
Mmmm. Howabout a library full of old retired couples?
I think .44 Mag is a better choice for black bear, and .454 or higher for Grizzly. Use heavy bullets for penetration. My choice for my .44 Mag when in the back country are the Hornady custom with the 240 Gr. XTP bullets (you can get 300 Gr, too). I've found them to be very accurate, too. This is in a Super Blackhawk.
Exactly. You never go into bear country without a repeater of some kind. Bolt action and other single shot action types does not cut it.
You always shoot for the neck in hope of breaking it.
.50 BMG!
20mm, but it's really heavy and requires payment of an unconstitutional $200 NFA tax.
What ever you do, never crawl up to the bear and attempt to sing to it. You folks remember that thread? It went on for over a week.
Yes, but is six bullets enough for a weapon of that size?
Of course, it's agin the law to have a loaded gun in a National Park. What was that thing people talk about that somebody wrote down a couple of hundred years ago? Oh yeah! I remember now!! It's the Second Amendment....
Hey! Can't we just get along?
I don't care how big the bear is, I don't think it could claw the hatches open on my tank.
Depending on the distance, you may not have time to empty the weapon. Usually, it's over one way or the other by round #4 or #5.
no kidding... and usually expressed with "mag" at the end.
Not if you're trying to *eat* me, no.
You can tell brown bear scat from grisly scat because grisly scat has bells and pepper spray in it.
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