Three shots end fierce mauling of hunter
SECOND BEAR: Seemingly perfect day went awry when another bruin ran out of the den.
By MEGAN HOLLAND
Anchorage Daily News
Published: April 18, 2007
Last Modified: April 18, 2007 at 06:49 AM
Hunter Lynn Keogh stood over the brown bear he had just shot and marveled at the animal. It was beautiful, the perfect spring pelt, a deep honey, fully-furred coat.
The bear had just barely woken up from its winter slumber when Keogh shot it as it emerged from a brushy den on the side of a snowy mountain in the Oshetna River valley between Glennallen and Talkeetna.
But as Keogh and his hunting partner approached and Keogh began pulling the dead bear clear of the winter den, the situation quickly turned from the perfect spring day hunt to a nightmare: From within the grizzly's winter hideaway, they heard the unmistakable deep growl of another bear.
Seconds later, the second animal charged out of the den straight for Keogh.
The hunter was able to fire one round from his rifle before the bear was on him. It bit Keogh from his legs up to his scalp and was chewing on his head when Keogh's hunting partner, Ray Bendixen, fired three rounds into the grizzly's skull. He shot it dead with a .220 Swift, a small-caliber rifle meant to kill vermin.
"There's absolutely no doubt in my mind that Ray saved my life," Keogh said Tuesday in a telephone interview from his Anchorage home, where he is recuperating.
Keogh, a 42-year-old hunting and fishing guide, was out for a casual day hunt Friday with his longtime friend Bendixen when the mauling occurred. The pair were on snowmachines and were in familiar territory about a three-hour ride from the Glenn Highway. Keogh was looking for bears. Bendixen was looking for wolves.
Hunting brown bears as they emerge from their dens usually begins in early April, said Bob Tobey, Alaska Fish and Game area biologist. He said about 30 to 40 brown bears are taken each spring in Game Management Unit 13, where Keogh and Bendixen were hunting.
After Keogh and Bendixen spotted the den and the animal, they watched through binoculars for close to five hours before they moved in closer to shoot it, they said. Both men say they only saw the one bear. Tracks around the den also seemed to show one bear.
Keogh snowshoed closer to the animal and when he was about 100 yards away got a clear shot and killed it with his .338 rifle. He fired a second time to be sure it was dead. The bear died with little more than its head clear of the den opening.
'NO HURRY'
They approached the opening, a 24-inch hole nestled amid brush and snow. Keogh removed his snowshoes and set his rifle aside.
"There was no hurry at all," he said.
They estimated the male bear to be about 3 years old and 6 feet tall, weighing about 400 pounds.
"At this point, that there was a second bear wasn't even a consideration," said Keogh, who grew up in Alaska and has a fair amount of experience hunting bears.
"That's when we heard the growl," said Bendixen, whose rifle was packed about 20 feet away on his snowmachine.
When the second animal emerged, the hunters acted quickly. But the bear, likely the dead bear's mother, was quicker.
"From the time I heard the noise, I saw the muzzle, saw the face, saw the head. Here it's coming," Keogh said. "It's four feet, and it's coming fast."
Keogh grabbed his rifle and shot it once -- a round that went in the left shoulder and through to its left hind leg. The bear, a female that the two hunters said was larger than the dead one, turned to the left, then got its feet back under it and looked like it might run by. But instead it went for Keogh. He tried to reload the gun, but he wasn't quick enough.
"It had me. It grabbed my leg," he said. "Somewhere pretty quick I lost that rifle out of my hand. At that point, there was nothing I could do."
"The bear started working its way up my body. It bit my leg. It bit me in the side. Then it bit me in the shoulder a couple of times. Then I realized it was going for my neck. I put my hands up to cover my neck and I no more got them up there and it bit down on my hands," he said.
"I heard the bone break."
"Then it was biting on my head and, again, I heard the teeth on the skull," he said. "It was just clear as a bell to me."
Bendixen had run back to the snowmachine to recover his gun. "Lynn was falling farther down the hill," he said. Bendixen took what Alaska Wildlife Trooper Jon Simeon would later describe as "three awesome, well-placed shots," at the bear's head.
BEATEN AND BLOODY
The bear dropped on Keogh.
"I only heard one shot and felt the bear fall," Keogh said.
He pushed the bear off him and kept moving, running down the mountain.
Keogh had puncture wounds from his feet to his skull. His hand was crushed and bloody inside his glove. The hunters knew they would need help and headed to an abandoned cabin about five miles away, Bendixen said.
Keogh used his satellite phone to call his son in Anchorage. His son called for help, and a LifeGuard Air Ambulance helicopter rescued Keogh.
Keogh was treated for his wounds and released from the hospital. He said doctors had to use staples to repair the tears on his head. Keogh's son and Bendixen salvaged the bears the next day.
"I always thought I was very careful when dealing with bears," Keogh said. "But that was just a bad deal of events there."
link- to story
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/wildlife/bears/attacks/story/8803434p-8704592c.html--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
