I woke up with my head in the jaws of a bear, says camper, 19
A TEENAGER has told how he woke to find a bear biting his head during a camping trip.
The 19-year- old said he heard a ‘ crunching sound’ as he was dragged from his sleeping bag.
He soon realised the ‘ immense pain’ he felt was the black bear’s teeth digging into his skull.
After being pulled for around 12ft, the teenager freed himself by punching the bear and poking it in the eye. With the help of four campmates, they were able to shoo it away.
Identified only as Dylan, the teenager was working at a Christian summer camp in Colorado, near the Rocky Mountain National Park, where he helps teach wilderness survival skills to 12 and 13-yearolds, who were sleeping nearby.
He told local TV station KMGH: ‘When it was dragging me, that was the slowest part. It felt like it went on for ever. The crunching noise, I guess, was the teeth scraping against the skull as it dug in.
‘I just started hitting the bear as hard as I could. I found its eye, and I started poking it with my fingers.
‘I feel really lucky – if I would have been turned any other direction, it could have gotten the side of my face or my neck.’ Colorado Parks and Wildlife rangers are now hunting the black bear. The breed is not usually aggressive.