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Montana man survives grizzly attack
Casper Star Tribune ^
| June 28, 2003
| n/a
Posted on 06/28/2003 12:45:05 PM PDT by decimon
LIVINGSTON, Mont. (AP) -- A retired Montana railroader turned mountain man knew the odds were good he'd have a close encounter with a grizzly bear someday while alone in the back country.
"It finally happened," Bob Johnson said Thursday from his hospital bed in Livingston. "She tried to kill me."
Johnson said he was attacked by the grizzly Wednesday in the Tom Miner Basin, north of Yellowstone National Park.
He said he couldn't remember how big the bear was. "How can you tell, when the SOB is trying to give you dental work?" he said.
Johnson, 55, remembers grabbing the bear by the nose with both hands as it tried to bite his face and throat. And he remembers taking an incredibly hard blow to the head. Doctors used 75 staples to reattach his scalp to his skull.
He also has a deep gash under his right arm, claw marks on his chest and back, bruises all over his body and some deep teeth punctures on his left forearm.
Johnson still hobbled several miles to his truck and drove to the B Bar Guest Ranch for help.
"He was not a pretty sight," said Aaron Davis, the chef at the ranch. "That scalp wound was downright gruesome."
Johnson said he was moving quietly through the woods, looking for petrified rock and believes he probably awakened the napping female grizzly with a cub.
He said he heard a sound, looked up and the bear was coming at him in full charge. The bear knocked him on his back and went for his face.
"I thought, I'm gonna fight until I die," he said.
Johnson, who lives in Clyde Park when he isn't in the backcountry, said family members want him to stay out of the mountains, but "I'll never do that.
"This was just bad luck."
TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; US: Montana
KEYWORDS: grizzly; holdmuhscalp
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How big is your dentist?
1
posted on
06/28/2003 12:45:05 PM PDT
by
decimon
To: decimon
Never go out in the back country without a gun.
2
posted on
06/28/2003 12:51:19 PM PDT
by
microgood
(They will all die......most of them.)
To: decimon; theDentist
He said he couldn't remember how big the bear was. "How can you tell, when the SOB is trying to give you dental work?" he said.
To: microgood
Never go out in the back country without a gun. Better be a big gun, and semi-auto too. Dont wanna piss the bear off...JFK
To: decimon
Lucky man, especially if he wasn't armed.
Bear vs man...bear always wins the fight.
5
posted on
06/28/2003 12:54:34 PM PDT
by
Dan from Michigan
(Liberals - "The suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked")
To: microgood
Never go out in the back country without a gun.Good advice but I don't think it would have helped this guy. Sounds like the bear was too quickly on him.
Not that he seems to mind all that much, anyway. Good man. Real good man.
6
posted on
06/28/2003 12:55:10 PM PDT
by
decimon
To: microgood
And dogs. Lots of dogs. Like 'ole Marcus Aurelius, here:
Comment #8 Removed by Moderator
To: decimon
Sounds like the bear was too quickly on him.
I got the same impression from the article.
9
posted on
06/28/2003 12:56:27 PM PDT
by
microgood
(They will all die......most of them.)
To: decimon
If you go into the bush without a .44 mag, you're asking for trouble!
To: Dan from Michigan
Bear vs man...bear always wins the fight.
I saw this Disney movie a long time ago and a bear was fighting with an African tiger. The tiger got his licks in but every once in a while the bear would smack that tiger with a paw and it would go head over heals about twenty feet in the air.
11
posted on
06/28/2003 12:59:24 PM PDT
by
microgood
(They will all die......most of them.)
To: Kuleana
Wear little bells and carry pepper spray?
To: LibWhacker
Presa Canario? Karelian Bear Dogs don't back-down. They give you time to drop the hammer!
To: BADROTOFINGER
Marlin .450 1895M
Back Country Bear Medicine
To: old school
Yes, Presa. Ain't he beautiful? Wish he were mine. :-(
Several like him, or those Karelian Bear Dogs you mentioned, and you'd have time to get off a shot.
To: old school
If you go into the bush without a .44 mag, you're asking for trouble!I'd carry something bigger than that. Nice trophy for whoever found my body.
16
posted on
06/28/2003 1:05:04 PM PDT
by
decimon
To: microgood
Don't remember it offhand.
I saw two black bears up north when I was deer hunting a couple of years back. Incredible site.
And I had my gun ready just in case.
17
posted on
06/28/2003 1:06:24 PM PDT
by
Dan from Michigan
(Liberals - "The suckiest bunch of sucks that ever sucked")
To: old school
If you go into the bush without a .44 mag, you're asking for trouble!Never shoot a bear with a hand gun. You'll make it mad.
18
posted on
06/28/2003 1:12:34 PM PDT
by
templar
To: templar
If someone wants to use a handgun on a grizzly they would be advised to first file the sights all the way down. That way it won't hurt so bad when the bear shoves it up their hind end.
To: Manic_Episode
A .454 Casull is more than enough, I think. Still, I'd rather have a rifle and some dogs with me for a big griz.
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