Minnesota Hunter Stops Black Bear Attack With Knife

A Minnesota hunting party became the hunted when a 525-pound black bear they had wounded with an arrow suddenly attacked.

Hunting in woodlands near Duxbury, Minn., a small community approximately one-and-a-half hours south of Deluth, the group spotted and legally shot the bear late Friday evening. After waiting four hours, the men tracked the blood trail several miles from their camp through dense swampland. Upon locating the animal, one member of the party approached the bear only to quickly realize the hunt wasn't over.

"And that's when they yelled 'It's big and it's coming your way.' All of the sudden I heard him screaming — felt like 10 minutes, but was probably 2 minutes — literally screaming, screaming and you knew he was being mauled," Craig Lindstrom, one of the hunters, told local news Kare11.

As the bear mauled the unnamed man — one arm trapped in the bears mouth — he managed to produce a knife and stab the bear upwards of 20 times before it finally ran off. His fellow hunter, a fireman trained in emergency response, immediately began first aid, saving his life.

"I thought he was dead 10 to 15 times. He would fall down and he told us about telling his parents, his fiancée, his kids — 'Tell them I love them,'" said Lindstrom. It took the group three hours to lead the man half a mile out of the woods to where they could call 911.

The victim was airlifted to a local hospital where he was treated for two broken arms and wounds to his face, torso and legs. He is in stable condition despite the traumatic list of injuries he sustained. The remaining members of the group returned to retrieve the bear, which they found dead 50 yards from the scene of the attack.

This was the second reported black bear attack from the weekend. In New Jersey, a bear attacked and killed a 22-year-old Rutgers student while hiking with friends in the Apshawa Preserve near West Milford Township. The bear was immediately shot when the rescue unit found it still at the scene.