Ont. woman survives U.S. bear attack

CODY, Wyo. – Frantic seconds into an attack by a bear, Deb Freele did something that went against all her instincts but probably saved her life – she totally relaxed.

"I thought I would be dinner," said Freele, 58, a visitor to the Montana backcountry from London, Ontario, who recalled awakening from a deep sleep in her tent near Yellowstone National Park to find she was being chewed on by a bear.

"Within hundredths of seconds, I felt the teeth in my arm, heard bones breaking. I screamed and that seemed to aggravate him. He sunk his teeth into me again," she said in a telephone interview from her hospital room in Cody, Wyoming.

"So I decided to play dead and mean it," she said. "Every muscle in my body went limp, like a rag doll . . . I thought I could play dead or be dead."

Her determination to stay calm and fight panic proved critical to her survival.

Freele said she quickly felt the bear’s jaws relax and, within several seconds, "he just dropped me and walked away."

Freele was one of three people attacked separately by a bear before dawn on Wednesday at the Soda Butte campground in Montana’s Gallatin National Forest.

One man was killed and another injured in the attacks, which wildlife officials said seemed to have been unprovoked.

Later on Thursday, Montana wildlife officials trapped an adult female grizzly they believe was the bear involved in the attacks.

Two of the grizzly mother’s three cubs also have been trapped, they said.

The bear’s DNA was being tested to see if it matches samples taken from the victims, and officials should be able to verify soon if they have the killer grizzly, said Ron Aasheim, spokesman for the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Department.

The killer bear is almost certain to be destroyed once positively identified, but the fate of the cubs was unclear.

Freele, who suffered multiple bites to her left arm, which was broken, said her ordeal lasted about 35 or 40 seconds and that her husband, who was asleep in a nearby tent, did not awaken until after it was over.

Freele, an experienced camper who was making her first visit to grizzly country, said: "I’m not afraid of bears, I respect them."

Wildlife experts say deadly bear attacks — either by grizzlies or black bares — are rare.

Chuck Schwartz, head of a government team that oversees Yellowstone-area grizzlies, said the region averages five human-grizzly encounters a year that cause injury. Few ever prove fatal.

"It’s extremely rare," said Schwartz, leader of the Interagency Bear Study Team.