Surviving a Grizzly Attack in Glacier National Park

Surviving a Grizzly Attack in Glacier National Park – Julie Cederborg

By: Samantha Meloche

Rating: ****

I really enjoyed this article because it shows the dangers of coming across a mother bear and her cubs.

In this article, it demonstrates the consequences of coming across a mother grizzly and her cubs and the reaction that your body gives when being in shock. In August 2005, Johan Otter and his 18-year-old daughter Jenna go hiking in Glacier National Park, Montana, and come across a 300 pound mother grizzly bear and her two cubs. In the article, Johan Otter came face to face with this bear, seen as just a big fuzzy brown thing biting his leg and throwing him around. He was in so much shock he did not feel pain. He 

realized that he had bear spray but it had fallen out of his bag when he was being tossed. After this attack, Johan Otter had About 60 percent of his head was “de-gloved” (ripped off), fractured his right eye socket and disrupted an eye muscle, a broken wrist, he broke his nose and two vertebrae, fractured his second cervical vertebra, and had bite marks all over. Jenna had just broken two parts her back falling down a mountain and had two bite marks.

This article makes me think of the consequences of coming across such a thing, how your body reacts when you are being hurt but being scared at the same time, and how I would do in their place. Johan described his experience as ‘painless’ because of shock. I learned that you need to know what you are putting yourself into before you do something and the cons that come with it. This article made me wake up and see that wildlife isn’t always nice and gentle.

Meloche, Samantha ‘Surviving a Grizzly Attack in Glacier National Park’. Backpacker.com, 19^th of November 2014