Photo-BRENDA GRUNDT, WWW.WAWA-NEWS.COM
Posted on 07/22/2006 5:30:03 PM PDT by kanawa
A Waterloo man and his dog made a harrowing escape from the clutches of a vicious black bear Thursday while portaging near Wawa, Ont.
Tom Tilley, 55, killed the nearly 200-pound bear by jumping on its back and stabbing the aggressive animal with a six-inch hunting knife after his dog alerted him and distracted the bear.
"Love is a very powerful emotion and my thought right away was, 'You're not going to kill my dog,' " Tilley said yesterday.
"I really consider my dog a hero. Without that first warning I would have had the bear clamping down on my neck."
Tilley had planned on spending 12 days portaging through the area near Wawa with his American Staffordshire, Sam.
Four days into the trip, as he was making his third trip back to the water near Abbey Lake to retrieve his gear, he heard his dog growl and noticed the bear closing in on him. He said he did what he's been taught to do when a bear is close -- he starting waving his arms and slowing started backing away from the animal.
The bear moved off the trail, but a few seconds later reappeared, cutting off Tilley's escape route.
"That's when I knew I had a serious problem . . . I was lunch," he said.
Sam, who was behind Tilley before the bear moved up the trail, was now between the bear and his owner. Instead of taking an aggressive stance, the dog stood sideways blocking the bear's route.
"The bear took a few steps down the trail and clamped its mouth on the back of my dog," Tilley said. "By attracting the bear's attention like that and distracting the bear from me it gave me the quick opportunity I needed to run around to the back of the bear, get on its back and with my knife start stabbing it."
Tilley had recently purchased the knife that would save his life after reading the story of Jacqueline Perry, the young Cambridge doctor who was killed by a bear last September.
Perry's husband attempted to fend off the animal with a Swiss Army Knife -- the only weapon he had.
"When I read the report about her death, it really hit home to me that these things are possible," Tilley said.
"I owe her husband a real debt of gratitude because if I hadn't heard her story and got that knife, I wouldn't be telling this story."
After making sure the animal was dead, Tilley realized he had suffered a wound to his hand and Sam had two puncture marks on his back. He needed to get help, but was a two-day portage away from civilization.
Dragging his canoe across the short portage, Tilley paddled for about an hour before he came across a pair of Americans who happened to have a satellite phone.
They called for help and two hours later, a cargo plane arrived to take Tilley back to Wawa for medical attention.
He was treated and released from hospital.
News of his feat passed quickly through the small community, with a population of just over 3,000.
"He had a lot of cojones to do what he did," said Brenda Grundt, who operates the local news site Wawa-news.com and drove Tilley two hours back to where he'd left his van after the incident.
LUCKY TO HAVE KNIFE
"It's pretty amazing. Here's a guy that wouldn't be here if he hadn't happened to have a knife on him."
As for Tilley, it wasn't until he was back in his van alone with Sam that he took in the gravity of the situation.
"I just thanked God I was alive and that my dog was alive and cried a bit, but they were tears of thanks and relief," he said.
The Ministry of Natural Resources has sent the bear's body to Guelph and Ottawa for testing.
"It's very unusual for a bear to attack a person (and) pretty amazing this gentleman was able to kill it just with a knife," said Jolanta Kowalski, spokes-person for the ministry.
Because Wawa doesn't have a veterinarian's office and a specialist wasn't available to treat his hand, Tilley decided to push through and make the long journey home that night.
Back in Waterloo, news of his experience trickled back to amazed friends and family. Despite the danger, Tilley said the incident hasn't erased his love of the outdoors.
"My daughter says I'm not allowed to go up there anymore," he said with a laugh. " But I left my canoe there knowing I'll have to go back to get it."
Photo-BRENDA GRUNDT, WWW.WAWA-NEWS.COM
Does your dad let you stay up late on Saturdays to play on the computer?
Good on you and Sam too! Glad you both survived.
Wow! I'm glad to hear that you made it back okay. A bear attack is no joke - Yogi can be deadly. Sounds like Sam is smarter than the average bear!
I'm telling you, I could market that knife, and sell millions of them.
We'll be glad to "leave you out" of the fight *you* keep perpetuating, if you'll just stop trying to run our lives.
I have no use for any derivative of the American Staffordshire Terrier.
Then don't own one.
The "ban" will be taken care of by insurance carriers who refuse to issue homeowners policies to owners of dangerous dogs.
No it won't. The free market will prevent your wet-dream of back-door dog elimination, as other insurance companies make money by continuing to insure such owners.
It's already started in many states around the country.
And that's about as far as it's going to get. So sorry for your statist fantasies.
Look, if you wet your pants in fear over certain breeds of dogs, fine, don't buy one. But don't presume to make that decision for anyone else -- doing so makes you just as bad as the various liberals who want to control what people do or how they live.
Statistically any member of [fill in the blank] "evil" dog breed is vastly less likely to injure or kill you than the average human being. Do you likewise go gutless every time a human walks by or lives next door to you, and do you want to eliminate certain kinds of humans you see as "higher risk", or do you reserve your irrational paranoia just for canines who are less dangerous than people, cars, or tons of other things you don't have a problem with?
Ping me when you find out. I'm your first customer!
BLAH!
BLAH!
BLAH!
You must be a cat person.
A very immature one, at that.
A born and now live in God's Country, Tennessee, bump.
Dogs and cats. No dogs that kill other dogs, or children, however.
This was the ultimate post :)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1670661/posts?page=182#182
Just be sure to give Kanawa a cut of the profits and I'll buy one from you.
Heavy Duty!
Dog lover ping...
LOLA spits into RIMMER's face.
RIMMER: I'll take that as a no then, I'll have it neat.
RIMMER downs the whisky, gulping. The smile freezes on his face. He grabs the hat being used as the pot in a card game, and is sick into it.
Music and talk stop. The owner of the hat stands and looms, making RIMMER look shorter than a Clint Eastwood speech. Chairs scrape back from tables.
BEAR STRANGLER MCGEE: A man beans up in the hat of Bear Strangler Mcgee, he's either mighty brave or mighty stupid. Which are you, boy?
RIMMER: Sorry, what were the choices again?
LISTER hands some money to MCGEE.
LISTER: You'll have to forgive our friend, he's a couple of Gunmen short of a posse.
BEAR STRANGLER MCGEE: That pays for the hat. What about the insult?
RIMMER: OK. You're a fat bearded git with breath that could knock-out a grizzly.
LISTER: (Shoving the rest of his money into MCGEE's hands.) Take the lot, man. Rimmer, what is wrong with you?
The bears and mountain lions do need to be thinned out a little.
A man, his dog and a heck of a bear tale with a happy ending.
Well done Kanawa.
I don't have to. Communities are deciding, for themselves and in democratic fashion, to keep certain dogs out.
Glad he made it out alive.......the moral of the story.....
DON'T GO CAMPING ALONE!
Just go write a vanity about your heroic poodle or something.
Cars can't jump a fence and attack a child walking by.
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