This morning's Chattanooga paper contained an article of a recent bear mauling in Alaska where the hunter was saved after a 35 hour rescue. An MD was close by, just by chance, and saved the hunter's life. No namess were given. Thought some of you may know if it were one of us. Anyway, prayers for the hunter's recovery and in gratitude for the MD are in order.

ADN.com

Man mauled by bear is rescued by National Guard

Published: August 16, 2013



By LISA DEMER— ldemer@adn.com


A man on a guided hunting trip was mauled and nearly killed by a brown bear then rescued early Friday 35 miles north of Anaktuvuk Pass., the Alaska Air National Guard said Friday evening.

The man, who wasn't identified, received life-saving first aid from a medical professional in a neighboring hunting party and was ultimately rescued by airmen with three National Guard rescue squadrons, the Guard said in a written statement.

The North Slope Borough first deployed a rescue team but its helicopter was turned back by dense fog. The borough called troopers, who also couldn't reach the victim in the remote Brooks Range area, the Guard said.

So the Alaska Air National Guard was called out.

"The man had been suffering for approximately 36 hours with severe injuries and possible loss of life," the statement said.

The Alaska Air National Guard's 211th Rescue Squadron launched an HC-130 airplane from Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson. The plane carried an HH-60 Pave Hawk helicopter crew from the 210th Rescue Squadron and pararescue teams from the 212th Rescue Squadron. They landed at Eielson Air Force Base, and around 12:30 a.m. Friday, the plane took off as did the helicopter crew, now in a Pave Hawk prepositioned there to save fuel.

"The crews were operating during the darkest part of night-time hours on night vision goggles," the written statement said. "The HC-130 had to dispense illumination flares to help the helicopter crew get through the pass and find the site and guide them back through the pass on the return."

The plane flew ahead of the helicopter to guide it through and also fueled the helicopter in the dark.

By 3 a.m., they reached the victim. The medical professional from the neighboring party had helped stem the loss of blood, and the pararescuers said he saved the man's life.

The helicopter took him to Fairbanks, where it was too foggy to land at Fairbanks Memorial Hospital. So they landed at Eielson just before 5 a.m. An ambulance took him to the Fairbanks hospital.

Reach Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.comor 257-4390.


ADN.com



Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/08/16/...d.html#storylink=cpy

My nephew is a PJ stationed in Anchorage. They have had a few bear mauling incidents this summer. Nephew said that guy in the article was in super bad shape, but made it.

Most of the PJs are big hunters, especially sheep hunters I hear; have had a couple of them up our place for caribou & moose & spring bear. There are only like 400 total in the AF and all the hunters want Ak for duty station. They are a big deal up here, big mission; and do what the state police & typical rescue squads aren't prepared for; they have the equipment and experience.

Those PJs are quite highly trained and most have been to Afghanistan 5-6 times. They get a real Afghan welcome whenever they go into villages to pick up wounded Americans, downed pilots, ect. My nephew got a silver star this Spring for a mission 2 deployments back and a couple bronze stars with valor for his last tour; saw them with my own eyes, read the presentation sheets. He got the silver star for refusing to leave a pilots body for the Afghans to dismember; his pave hawk was damaged, flight engineer wounded, and their chopper had to go back to Bagram. PJ team was on ground 6 hrs with Talibans shooting them up, no joke; because they wouldn't leave the area without the body, even if it meant their own demise. Finally, they all got out with body when Air Power showed up, rocketed the crap outta the Taliban. I asked the nephew what went through his head when their Pave Hawk left them there with 50 Afghans from local village displaying their love for America. He said, I thought my time was up that day, but the training saved them. Anyway, they do all kinds of rescues, have various gear set ups for ocean, mountain, ect. The nephew climbed Denali this summer, training with 8 other PJs. Too cool of a job actually.

They do all kinds of flying all over Alaska both training and rescues. Imagine what they see flying here and there, all the sheep and big bulls. A hunters dream occupation.

The guy who was injured was a guide not an actual hunter. He was packing in a caribou & I guess he just stumbled upon the bear. Very nice guy, I spent 10 days with him. He was my guide two years ago when I hunted in the Brooks Range.

"Bowerfind said Tuttle told him that the bear that attacked him was familiar and even had been nicknamed by the hunters.

'This was a known bear -- he said he sees it every camping trip,' Bowerfind said."

That blk bear that ate the guy out George's Lake near Big Delta, was another local bear that had been seen around and nobody even thought as being dangerous; was a 230 lber. When the rescue guys got there, the bear had ate the guys head off and was laying by his knee, bear was later shot and body parts identified in bear's stomach. This all happened in the guy's back yard. between his boat dock and cabin.

Alaskans shoot most bear that come around a second time, just dangerous pests, nothing more.

We had a few into our fire barrel, up on porch, ect. Set up a bear stand with barrel 3 years back and got over 20 bear. The bear are never seen around the cabin nowadays and there numbers are down. Got to keep them that way too.

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That blk bear that ate the guy out George's Lake near Big Delta,

I like bit more info on this do have a time frame or a link.

thanks.

P dog, it was local Ak newspaper article. Late Spring, 65 year old guy and his wife were walking towards their house from boat dock on lake. Local blk bear that had been seen around regular came after him. Guy told his wife to go to cabin, ge gun. Bear grabbed guy, wifey got scared; couldn't load gun stayed inside cabin. The PJs were called in and they flew out there in pave hawk.

I have a half dozen friends who have been mauled, one guy twice. I've had blk bear crawl in on me real slow. Common up here in Ak. I never saved link to article.

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Originally posted by Zhurh:
My nephew is a PJ stationed in Anchorage. They have had a few bear mauling incidents this summer. Nephew said that guy in the article was in super bad shape, but made it.

Most of the PJs are big hunters, especially sheep hunters I hear; have had a couple of them up our place for caribou & moose & spring bear. There are only like 400 total in the AF and all the hunters want Ak for duty station. They are a big deal up here, big mission; and do what the state police & typical rescue squads aren't prepared for; they have the equipment and experience.

Those PJs are quite highly trained and most have been to Afghanistan 5-6 times. They get a real Afghan welcome whenever they go into villages to pick up wounded Americans, downed pilots, ect. My nephew got a silver star this Spring for a mission 2 deployments back and a couple bronze stars with valor for his last tour; saw them with my own eyes, read the presentation sheets. He got the silver star for refusing to leave a pilots body for the Afghans to dismember; his pave hawk was damaged, flight engineer wounded, and their chopper had to go back to Bagram. PJ team was on ground 6 hrs with Talibans shooting them up, no joke; because they wouldn't leave the area without the body, even if it meant their own demise. Finally, they all got out with body when Air Power showed up, rocketed the crap outta the Taliban. I asked the nephew what went through his head when their Pave Hawk left them there with 50 Afghans from local village displaying their love for America. He said, I thought my time was up that day, but the training saved them. Anyway, they do all kinds of rescues, have various gear set ups for ocean, mountain, ect. The nephew climbed Denali this summer, training with 8 other PJs. Too cool of a job actually.

They do all kinds of flying all over Alaska both training and rescues. Imagine what they see flying here and there, all the sheep and big bulls. A hunters dream occupation.

We give the USAF a lot of crap about being the "ChairForce", but when the Navy all but gave up on Combat SAR and we only had two reserve HAL squadrons, the Air Force kept the faith. We were told in survival and SERE school that if we ejected over indian territory, we would be on our own and don't expect to get rescued any time soon - we had lost too many rescue helos and crews in Vietnam.

Thankfully, that group of "administrators" was replaced and CSAR was resurrected in the Navy. Thanks to the Air Force for not giving it up. All the respect in the world to your nephew and all the PJs. A truly impressive group. They save a lot of lives up here.

Did Goole search and found a couple of articles sounds like a predatory attack to me.

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Originally posted by p dog shooter:
Did Goole search and found a couple of articles sounds like a predatory attack to me.

On the other hand, if it was a predatory attack, there wouldn't have been a victim to recover. He would have been bear poop...

http://www.adn.com/2013/08/26/...-got-complacent.html

What ever the reason, always carry something. Just had a pretty big grizzly cross the road in front of me while driving home today in an area lots of people walk their dogs.

quote:

On the other hand, if it was a predatory attack, there wouldn't have been a victim to recover. He would have been bear poop...

They did recover human parts in the bear's stomach So the bear did eat some of the victim.

quote:

Originally posted by p dog shooter:

quote:

On the other hand, if it was a predatory attack, there wouldn't have been a victim to recover. He would have been bear poop...

They did recover human parts in the bear's stomach So the bear did eat some of the victim.

The incidents, (plural,) seem to be blurring.

In one case a female grizzly jumped on a fellow in heavy cover, stomped him good and he's currently posing for color photos quite alive.

In the other incident, a black bear attacked and ate a male person at or quite near his cabin. The remains of the victim were found in the attacking black bears stomach.

Yes I realize our hysterical members aren't interested in facts.

quote:

Originally posted by Zhurh:
P dog, it was local Ak newspaper article. Late Spring, 65 year old guy and his wife were walking towards their house from boat dock on lake. Local blk bear that had been seen around regular came after him. Guy told his wife to go to cabin, ge gun. Bear grabbed guy, wifey got scared; couldn't load gun stayed inside cabin. The PJs were called in and they flew out there in pave hawk.

.

I guess that's the one I was last referring to.

Jim's version:

http://www.adn.com/2013/08/26/...-got-complacent.html