A hiker was attacked by a protecting grizzly bear, who dragged him about 20 ft and left his arm “simply type of dangling” from a vicious chunk.
Daniel Crago, 32, of San Diego, was mountaineering in Montana’s Glacier Nationwide Park on Might 28 when he first stumbled throughout a grizzly cub.
“Not more than 15 ft above me on the mountainside was a bigger grizzly,” he recalled in an internet fundraiser.
“At that time, I did what they type of educate or prepare you to do: simply alert the bear so that you don’t startle. You make them conscious,” Crago advised CBS 8 from the hospital, the place he’s nonetheless recovering.
He repeatedly yelled “Hey bear!” — however the hulking animal made eye contact, charged at him, and sank its tooth into his proper arm.
“I simply type of thought ‘That is it,’” he recalled. “It bit down on my arm, dragged me possibly 20 ft.”
The bear then ran off down the mountain, he mentioned.
“Fortunately, the bear didn’t injure the wrist, didn’t injure the elbow. It was only a full crush of the bones, the forearm bones,” Crago mentioned.
Luckily, a health care provider occurred to be in a mountaineering get together close by who stopped the bleeding and stabilized his arm earlier than a chopper airlifted him to a hospital in Kalispell, Montana.
He has since returned to San Diego after present process three surgical procedures, and has one other scheduled this week. He has virtually raised his fundraising aim of $24,000 to cowl his medical prices.
The avid hiker mentioned the assault won’t maintain him from his favourite pastime: having fun with the good outdoor.
“It’s a part of who I’m,” Crago mentioned. “It’s not gonna cease me.”
