Grizzly bear attack survivor still haunted six months later

Johnny Johnson is still haunted by the mauling inflicted on him by an angry grizzly near his Rivers Inlet home.

“I still have nightmares,” said Johnson, 51. “When I lay down, I can see the bear snorting and spitting at me. That’s the strongest memory I have.”

Johnson is recovering from his latest surgery on Jan. 6 to repair his scalp at Victoria’s Royal Jubilee Hospital, and is back home, healing from a broken arm and other cuts and bruises suffered in the July 4 attack.

“I feel kind of lucky in a way” because the bear didn’t sever his jugular or spine, said the soft-spoken Johnson, a forestry worker and foster dad of a dozen grown children.

“She kind of picked me up by the neck,” he said. “I’ve got a lot of pain in my neck. Neck spasms.

“It’s going to to be a long, slow process,” he said. “It’s been up and down. I have good days and bad days.”

Johnson was out that day picking salmonberries, a trip he delayed by a good 90 minutes because he saw a couple of the town dogs chasing a grizzly bear and her cubs.

“I wanted to wait until thedanger was past.”

After picking berries for about 20 minutes, he remembers emerging from the bush only to be knocked down by what felt like a train.

“I think I just stepped into her path,” he said.

The sow attacked him for about 20 seconds before turning back to her cubs, which were being harassed by the dogs he had seen earlier.

He said he took two steps before the grizzly returned. He stuck up his arm, the one that would be broken, to fend off her advances, only to have it disappear down her mouth.

“I grabbed hold of her tongue,” he said. “But that wasn’t such a good idea. She started slapping me around.”

The bear left again to tend to her cubs before returning a third time. This time Johnson stuck his thumb into her eye to try to do some damage and distract her.

He doesn’t recall feeling any pain “because of the adrenalin. It was more like a burning sensation. Everything was in black and white and slow motion.”

He said he rolled into a crevice and must have blacked out. When he came to, everything was dark.

“I sat up and I realized I was buried with leaves and branches,” he said.

“Grizzlies have the tendency to bury their prey to let it rot.”

The muscle on one leg was mangled, but both his legs worked and he walked out of the bush toward town, reaching the house of Frank Hanuse-Fuggy more than a kilometre away, surprising his buddy when he answered the door.

Johnson was flown to hospital and is now back at home.

“It appears the attack was initiated by the dogs and it’s wasn’t a predatory attack,” said conservation officer Doug Forsdick. “It was a chance encounter. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. There have been no further signs of aggression.”

He said the animal hasn’t been sighted since.

Johnson said he isn’t angry at the grizzly because she was just looking after her young. He told the conservation officers that he didn’t want her killed.

“We can’t keep killing everything we fear or don’t understand or there won’t be anything left besides us,” said Johnson.

His near-death experience hasn’t kept him from the bush because he’s “an outdoor kind of guy” and he spends a lot of time in the wilderness taking photographs mostly of the area’s stunning vistas and wildlife, yes, including grizzlies, which he posts to his Facebook account.

He still needs two or three more surgeries on his scalp and he looks forward to a complete recovery and a return to work.

“I’ve been a working man all of my life and I want to get back to it,” he said.

Johnston said he doesn’t follow any particular spiritual path or give thanks to a Creator for sparing him from an almost certain death but he’s grateful nonetheless.

“What I believe is that every day above ground is a blessing,” he said.