A man has recalled how he survived a horrifying animal attack that has left him with injuries including a crushed jaw.
Allen Minish was all by himself when he was surveying land for a real estate agent in a remote area of Alaska. He was putting some digits into his GPS unit when he looked up and spotted a huge bear walking about 30 feet away.
“I saw him and he saw me at the same time, and it’s scary,” he said on Wednesday from his hospital bed in Anchorage, a day after the attack, reported Las Vegas Review-Journal.
Minish underwent a four and a half-hour surgery. Now he has a crushed jaw, a puncture wound in his scalp so deep the doctor told him he could see bone and several stitches. He is also sporting a patch over his right eye.
According to Minish, the bear was larger than 300-pound black bears he had seen. The animal charged and closed the ground between them in seconds. The encounter lasted less than 10 seconds. Minish tried to hide behind small trees, but that didn't help.
As the bear came closer, Minish held up the pointed end of his surveying pole and pushed it toward the bear. The bear knocked it to the side. This led to Minish falling to the ground. “As he lunged up on top of me, I grabbed his lower jaw to pull him away,” said Minish, who also got a puncture wound in his hand.
“But he tossed me aside there, grabbed a quarter of my face. He took a small bite and then he took a second bite, and the second bite is the one that broke the bones … and crushed my right cheek basically,” he added.
When the bear released him, Minish turned his face to the ground and placed his hands over his head. Then the bear left.
He called 911. In the process, he pulled off his vest and T-shirt and wrapped them around his head. It took 59 minutes for help to arrive.
In another animal attack incident, a four-year-old boy is recovering from an attack by a wild animal last week in Warren Township, Ohio, reported Fox 8. It's believed that the boy was bitten by a coyote.
