WATCH: A forestry worker is extremely lucky to be alive after running into a mother bear and her cub near Bella Bella, He shares his dramatic close call with reporter Catherine Urquhart.
“I thought I was going to die.”
Recovering in Vancouver General Hospital, forestry worker George Knoll is grateful for surviving a grizzly bear attack near Bella Bella.
“It’s my first time seeing a grizzly, other than at a zoo. I feel pretty good alive.”
Knoll was working Thursday morning in the Kwatna Inlet area east of Bella Bella when he stumbled across the bear, who was with her cub.
“I backed up a bit, and she basically charged me right away,” said Knoll.
“I was yelling at her, but she barreled right into me, took me down. Started instantly biting me, tearing me, biting my arms. I rolled on to my stomach into the ground, put my hands over my head, and tried to protect my vitals.”
After several minutes of the bear batting and biting at Knoll, she stopped for a moment, allowing him to get on his feet.
“She came back in, I managed to twirl myself around and get my legs up. I waited for her to come close…and just booted her as hard as I could right in the face with my work boots,” said Knoll.
After this scenario repeated itself a few more times, the bear left.
Conservation officer Len Butler said it is likely that the bears and Knoll did not hear each other. He says encounters between humans and grizzly sows with cubs are not that rare.
“It’s usually a brief encounter and then they leave the area so that part is not the rarity of it,” he said.
“If it was more of a predatory attack, this would be a different outcome. His injuries, like I said, the biting, the large lacerations, he’s a very fortunate man. He probably doesn’t feel that fortunate, but he is to be alive, I think, in this case.”
EXTENDED INTERVIEW: George Knoll shares his dramatic encounter with a grizzly bear and her cub
With blood gushing from his arm, Knoll managed to prop himself up, use his teeth to pull shut a tensor bandage over his arm, and put in a radio call to his co-workers.
Butler said a call came into the conservation office soon after.
Knoll’s wife Andrea told Global News her husband is going to be OK, but he suffered a lot of bites to his back. “He has about 50 puncture wounds,” she said.
Knoll also received bites on his elbow, but not his head and face.
Butler says grizzly sow and her cub will not be killed and will be allowed to roam out of the area.
For his part, Knoll has no ill will towards the bears.
“I’m not angry,” he says.
“She was doing her thing, and I was doing my thing. It was just kind of a battle.”
More to come.
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