A hunter fatally killed a massive black bear with a hunting kinfe after it attacked him when the animal was shot with a bow and arrow in Minnesota, UK MailOnline reported. The unidentified victim is now in stable condition.
A group of friends were hunting in dense woodland near Duxbury on Friday night when the man, who has not been named, spotted a 525 lb black bear and fired at it. Fearing that the evening heat would spoil the bear's meat, the group waited over four hours before using the bear's blood trail to track the animal several miles from their hunting camp.
However, the injured bear unexpectedly charged and pounced on the unidentified victim after the group discovered it lying on the ground in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Since the large animal was repeatedly clawing and biting at him, the hunter attempted to fatally stab the bear around 20 times with a hunting knife, Kare11.com reported.
"I heard him screaming - felt like 10 minutes, but was probably two minutes - literally screaming, and you knew he was being mauled," fellow hunter Craig Lindstrom, from Wyoming, said.
"He made that thing die because he stabbed it about 20 times while it was chewing on his arm. He kept stabbing it and it was pounding on him, a quarter of a ton - a 525 pound bear pounding on him."
"You go into the woods, not thinking this will ever happen, legally and humanely go after a bear you shot, and it turned bad," Lindstrom said.
Trained as a Chicago City firefighter to handle emergency responses, Lindstrom applied his first aid skills and quick thinking to lead his friend half a mile out of the woods, where he was able to call the Pine County Sheriff's Office, according to Karell.com.
"I had two tourniquets on both of his arms. I have a strap, I strapped it around his arms to hold his arms, I put his hands in his pockets and we had a belt and we led him with the belt," said Lindstrom. "I was very emotional all day because I've never been a part of anything like this. I cut people out of cars. I've hauled people out of bad car accidents on Highway 8. This is just the worst it was. But at the same time, the best there was - because of him."
"I thought he was dead 10 to 15 times. He would fall down and he told us about telling his parents, his fiancée, his kids - tell them I love them," continued Lindstrom.
After being flown to North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale, the man was confirmed to have suffered two broken arms and wounds to his face, jaw, stomach and legs, according to UK MailOnline.
Meanwhile, ten remaining hunters dragged the dead bear about 50 yards from where it was stabbed back to the camp.
Despite the incident, the group of hunters is licensed to hunt bears, with Lindstrom saying that they will not hesitate to do so again in the future.
"Oh absolutely, this is his life. We hunt every weekend from September to December. Every weekend. That's what we do. We live for this. We live for, not necessarily shooting anything, the camaraderie, the being in the woods but doing it the right away and having fun," said Lindstrom.
Black bears are typically around four to seven feet from nose to tail. Males tend to weigh between 130 to 350lbs, but some can be as large as 600 lbs, according to UK MailOnline.
Pictures can be viewed here.
