SHOOTING TRIP ENDS IN BEAR ATTACK 
 

An American man is lucky to be alive after being mauled by a grizzly bear whilst hunting in Alaska. 

In what some might see as an example of nature getting its own back, 42-year-old Lynn Keogh suffered a broken hand and several bite wounds in the incident, which took place in valley of the Oshetna River last week. 

The attack occurred just minutes after Keogh and his shooting partner, Ray Bendixen, had killed a small grizzly that they had been observing for more than five hours.   

Having shot the grizzly with a .338 rifle as it emerged from a den, the pair approached the corpse to take a closer look.  Whilst examining the animal, estimated to be a three-year-old, another bear suddenly leapt from the den and clamped its jaws down on Keogh’s head.    He managed to fire off a shot in the seconds before the grizzly attacked but the shot failed to halt the angry animal, thought to be the dead bear’s mother.   

As the enraged beast savagely attempted to finish off the Alaskan, Keogh’s hunting partner recovered from the shock of seeing his friend being eaten alive and managed to plant three bullets in the bear’s skull.  Not surprisingly, the angry bear, said to be at least seven feet tall, immediately released his evening meal and fell to the ground dead. 

Describing the terrifying incident to journalists, Keogh said, “There was nothing I could do.  The bear started working its way up my body.  It bit my leg.  It bit me in the side.  Then in bit me in the shoulder a couple of times.   

“Then I realised it was going for my neck.  I put my hands up to cover my neck and I no more got them up there and it bit down on my hands.  I heard the bone break. 

“Then it was biting on my head and, again, I heard the teeth on the skull.  It was just clear as a bell to me.” 

When his partner had shot the bear with his .220 rifle, the pair mounted their snowmobiles and retreated to a deserted cabin five miles away.  Such was the extent of Keogh’s injuries that it was then decided to use their satellite phone to summon the assistance of an air ambulance. 

A helicopter duly arrived and ferried the two hunters to safety, dropping Keogh at hospital in the process.  His broken hand was operated on and the bite wounds in his head were stapled before he was discharged with orders to rest at home. 

Looking back on his eventful shooting trip, hunting-loving Keogh told reporters, “I was really lucky, plain and simple.  It could have been a lot worse than it was.”