A hiker was attacked by a protective grizzly bear, who dragged him about 20 feet and left his arm “just kind of dangling” from a vicious bite.
Daniel Crago, 32, of San Diego, was hiking in Montana’s Glacier National Park on May 28 when he first stumbled across a grizzly cub.
“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,” Crago told CBS 8 from the hospital, where he is still recovering.
He repeatedly yelled “Hey bear!” — but the hulking 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.”
The bear then ran off down the mountain, he said.
“Thankfully, the bear didn’t injure the wrist, didn’t injure the elbow. It was just a complete crush of the bones, the forearm bones,” Crago said.
Fortunately, a doctor happened to be in a hiking party nearby who stopped the bleeding and stabilized his arm before a chopper airlifted 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 $24,000 to cover his medical costs.
The avid hiker said the attack will not keep him from his favorite pastime: enjoying the great outdoors.
“It’s part of who I am,” Crago said. “It’s not gonna stop me.”
