Teen survives brown bear mauling
TUSTUMENA LAKE: Cody Williams requires 38 staples to close head wound.
By LISA DEMER
Anchorage Daily News
(Published: May 14, 2003)
Cody Williams, 17, sits at his home in Kasilof Tuesday as his mother replaces bandages on injuries he suffered during a bear attack. The teenager is recovering from a broken hand, puncture wounds and gashes after he was mauled by a brown bear Sunday. (M. Scott Moon / The Associated Press )
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The pain wasn't registering yet, but Cody Williams could hear the damage as the bear clawed and chewed on him.
"I thought I was going to die, pretty much," Williams, 17, said Tuesday from his home in Kasilof, where he was recovering from a broken hand and numerous punctures and gashes after a bear mauling Sunday.
He was attacked by a brown bear while hunting black bear near Tustumena Lake on the Kenai Peninsula.
"I heard chomping or jaws or just the sound of it, the teeth (raking) the skull. It's kind of weird. It's like you can hear through the skull," he said in a telephone interview.
Before the attack by the sow, Williams said, one of her cubs charged him. He shot and killed it.
He and a friend, Matt Weaver, both juniors at Skyview High School in Soldotna, had spent Saturday night at a public use cabin in the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
Williams said he has years of exploring the outdoors in Montana and now Alaska, where his family runs the Crooked Creek RV Park. But he said he mainly hunted deer and "small critters." He had never killed a bear.
Sunday morning, the teenagers scouted around for moose antlers, found a few, got lost around a swamp, and made their way back to the lake. They hooked up with an adult friend of Weaver's family that afternoon to hunt black bear, which are in season in the refuge.
The trio staked out a meadow on the lake's north side, about 11/2 miles west of Bear Creek. They climbed trees to get a better look. It was raining, so after a while Williams climbed down from his cottonwood. He intended to take shelter under a nearby spruce tree.
As an airplane flew over low, Weaver spotted a brown bear that stood up, said Rob Barto, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service officer who is investigating the mauling.
It was a sow with two cubs, and they were walking toward Weaver. He made some grunting sounds to scare them.
"They ambled off and they ambled off right toward where Cody was sitting," Barto said.
Williams said he could hear the bears rustling around. He readied his .30-06-caliber rifle. One of the cubs charged him, Williams said. He fired a single shot from about 10 yards away. It went through the cub's right front shoulder and killed the bear, a 2-year-old female, Barto said.
The sow kept coming.
Williams started backing up, slowly at first. He wanted to get up the cottonwood tree. From about 10 yards away, he took off running for it.
From his perch, Weaver took in the danger.
"He saw Cody running down the hill as fast as he could and the brown bear behind him," Barto said.
Williams said he was trying to climb up the tree when the sow got to him.
"She grabs me and throws me down on the ground. She was on me," Williams said. The bear gnawed and clawed at his hand, his arm, his legs and his face. He covered his neck and head with his hands.
Weaver fired a shot over the bear and it released Williams, who shouted at Weaver to keep shooting, that he was bit, Barto said.
The sow turned back toward Williams. He had dropped his rifle but now had his .44-caliber revolver out. He unloaded all six shots at the brown bear, which lumbered away.
Williams reloaded as he walked toward Weaver. A bone was protruding from his hand, so he poked it back into place. Nothing hurt too bad, yet, he said. The adult with them, Scott Oldenburg, had gotten to the teens by then and called 911 on a cell phone. He loaded Williams into his skiff and got him to the dock, where paramedics were waiting.
Oldenburg, who was the farthest from the attack, told Barto that "all he heard was the one shot, the blood curdling scream and the six quick shots."
Williams was treated at Central Peninsula General Hospital. He needed 38 staples to close the wound in his head. His left hand still needs to be seen by a specialist. He suffered deep puncture wounds to his legs and left arm. But he'll be fine, his father said.
The sow may survive, too. Barto and others did a foot search and fly overs in a plane and a helicopter. They saw no blood or any trace of the bear. They also found no evidence of bear baiting, which is not allowed in the refuge.
There are about 250 to 300 brown bears on the Kenai Peninsula, so few that in recent years no brown bear hunting has been allowed, said Bruce Bartley, spokesman for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game. But shooting one in defense of life or property is perfectly legal, he said.
Bears maul about a half dozen people a year in Alaska. Every two or three years, someone gets killed. It's almost always a brown bear trying to eliminate a threat, Bartley said.
The best advice? Stay in the open. Make noise. If a brown bear attacks, drop down, play dead and protect your neck. If a black bear attacks, fight back, Bartley said.
If the bear had wanted to kill him, it would have, Williams said.
He knew not to run, but didn't want to shoot the brown bear. In hindsight, though, he said he should have stood his ground with his gun at the ready.
"He made instant decisions that he will carry scars the rest of his life for," Barto said. "No one knows how you will react in a stressful situation until you get in the situation."
As for Williams, his advice is to carry a sidearm and be cautious. "Don't try to second-guess a bear, I guess," he said.
Reach Daily News reporter Lisa Demer at ldemer@adn.com and 257-4390.
