Man attacked, harassed by bear for days saved by Coast Guard in Alaska

KODIAK, Alaska (NewsNation Now) — A man who was attacked by a bear in the Alaskan wilderness claims the animal returned to his camp every night for a week to harass and terrorize him until he was finally rescued.

When the Coast Guard came to his rescue, they found a man on top of a shack, waving for help.

Lt. Cmdr. Jared Carbajal, who was one of the pilots on that rescue mission, say they weren’t really looking for anybody when they initially flew over the shacks.

“We weren’t looking for anybody. We’re repositioning to Nome, Alaska for a science mission — one of the missions we do up here in the Arctic,” explained Carbajal. “And my co-pilot said that there’s someone down there and he’s waving at us.”

Carbajal said there are a few mining sites in the area and a couple of cabins, so they initially didn’t think much of it. Until they noticed the person was waving with two hands.

“Until he clarified that he was waving with two hands, two hands over his head. So we circled back around, we’d already flown past it. We circled back around to see what was going on. It’s usually a sign of distress,” said Carbajal.

Once they landed nearby, the man told them he’d been attacked by a bear and that he hadn’t slept in days because the bear kept returning.

Carbajal said the man didn’t appear to have any injuries on him, but he told them the bear pounced on him while he was on an ATV. The man said he fired a few shots and the bear left. That’s when it began to stalk him.

Carbajal believes the man was mining in the area at the time. He also said it was the first time his crew had ever been flagged down by someone in distress.