A hiker has survived a horrific bear attack that crushed the bones in his arm, leaving it dangling while he waited for help to arrive.
Daniel Crago, a 32-year-old from San Diego, was hiking in Montana’s Glacier National Park on May 28 when he first stumbled across a grizzly cub, the New York Post reported.
“No more than 15 feet above me on the mountainside was a larger grizzly,” he recalled in an online fundraiser.
“At that point, I did what they kind of teach or train you to do: just alert the bear so you don’t startle. You make them aware,” Mr Crago told CBS 8 from the hospital where he is still recovering.
He repeatedly yelled “Hey bear!” but the animal made eye contact, charged at him, and sank its teeth into his right arm.
“I just kind of thought ‘This is it,’” he recalled.
“It bit down on my arm, dragged me maybe 20 feet.”
He then said the bear ran off down the mountain.
“Thankfully, the bear didn’t injure the wrist, didn’t injure the elbow,” Mr Crago said. “It was just a complete crush of the bones, the forearm bones.”
Fortunately, a doctor happened to be in a hiking party nearby who stopped the bleeding and stabilised his arm before a chopper flew him to a hospital in Kalispell, Montana.
He has since returned to San Diego after undergoing three surgeries, and has another scheduled this week.
He has almost raised his fundraising goal of US$24,000 to cover his medical costs.
The avid hiker said the attack will not keep him from his favourite pastime: enjoying the great outdoors.
“It’s part of who I am,” Mr Crago said. “It’s not gonna stop me.”
This article originally appeared in the New York Post and was reproduced with permission.
