A hunter from Washington nearly found himself on the wrong end of the food chain when he was mauled by a bear in Alaska and narrowly survived the ordeal. "I was sure I was going to die," Jadon Nicoara, 27, told King 5. He and his cousin, Dan, were hunting for caribou last Thursday when a bear charged them from behind.
"This bear is running full speed, like out of the movies. It was insane," Nicoara said. When the animal reached the startled hunters, it bit into Nicoara's face.
He said he could feel the strength of the bear's jaws crushing pieces of his skull. He said at that point he was sure he would die. "I was in a strange space.
It was like, what's the point where you cross from living, and you're going into heaven?" he said. Nicoara's cousin pulled a handgun and began firing on the bear, which likely saved his relative's life at the cost of making himself a target. The bear stopped attacking Nicoara and charged Daniel, knocking him to the ground.
"That's like one of the most sinking feelings ever. When I was shooting at it, and all of a sudden they whipped around, and it looked at me and was like, 'wait a minute,'" Daniel told KOMO News. "So he charged me, and I emptied the rest of my magazine as he was charging." Daniel said the force of the bear's attack knocked the gun out of his hands.
Once he was on the ground, he said he curled up into a ball, protected his head, and tried to play dead. It's unclear if the bear lived or died, but the weapon apparently did enough damage to drive the animal off. Though the attack was over, the men were still out in the Alaska on a hunting trip, meaning they'd need to make it out of the wilderness with their injuries before they'd get a chance for proper care.
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