A disabled veteran miraculously survived an attack by a mother bear protecting her cubs in the Wyoming wilderness, calling the encounter “the most violent thing I’ve ever experienced.”
Shane Patrick Burke, 35, was seriously injured while hiking Signal Mountain in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park on Sunday when he was “in the wrong place at the wrong time,” he wrote in a blog post. Instagram.
The wildlife photographer said he wanted to photograph a great horned owl before leaving, so he set off alone into the wilderness, telling his wife he would meet her in the park parking lot in an hour.
He turned back about an hour into his solo journey, saying he was overcome with a “really unpleasant feeling.”
“I would break branches, sing, and talk to myself out loud,” Burke recalls. These are some of the things that helped prevent a ‘surprise encounter’ with a brown bear.”
The Massachusetts man was walking through a heavily wooded area in the 310,000-acre park when he noticed “a brown bear cub running up a hill about 50 to 70 yards away.”
“I knew this was not good,” Burke wrote.
The moment he saw the mother bear charging straight towards him, all hell broke loose.
The man, who has fighting experience, pulled out bear spray and yelled at the bear, but the bear closed in and attacked.
“When she jumped on me I turned so my back was on her and I was lying face down with my hands behind my neck supporting her,” Burke explained.
The bear then bit and slashed him behind his right shoulder.
“She then turned and stomped on my back. She bit one of my legs, then lifted me up and slammed me to the ground multiple times,” he wrote. “She bit me from my buttocks down to the inside of my knees, three times on each leg.”
“Unfortunately,” he said, he shouted again, drawing her attention to his head.
“I think she delivered the fatal bite to my neck. I still had my hands together and my arm was protecting my carotid artery,” Burke said.
But Burke stuck with his bear spray, and he believes it saved his life.
“She bit the hand behind my neck and at the same time bit into the can of bear spray, which exploded in her mouth,” the wildlife lover wrote.
The former Army reservist then heard the bear running up the hill toward its cubs.
Burke wrapped a makeshift tourniquet around his leg as he texted his wife for help.
He then called 911 and stayed on the phone with the operator to help a rescue helicopter locate him.
“I was lying alone in the woods with my back against a tree, clutching my knife, just praying that the bear wouldn’t come back,” he said, waiting for help. “At this point, I could barely move my legs.”
Although they were able to slow the bleeding, helicopters had difficulty finding his exact location.
“In that moment, I accepted that I might die on top of that little hill. I recorded a short video telling my family I love them,” he wrote.
He was later found and taken to St. John’s Hospital in Jackson, Wyoming, where he underwent surgery.
Burke, who is expected to make a full recovery, said he experienced “gunfire, mortar fire and IED explosions” during his time in the Army and called this “the most violent event I’ve ever experienced.”
As for the mother bear, Burke harbors no animosity towards the wild animal.
“I love and respect wildlife,” he wrote, “and the next thing I said to the park ranger was, please don’t kill the bear; she was protecting her cubs.”
The park authorities Confirmed He denied the attack and said he does not capture or kill bears.
Due to the growing grizzly bear population in the area, several such attacks occur each year.
Park officials urge people to give bears plenty of space, carry bear spray and avoid leaving food that may attract bears.
