Guy Fights Off Grizzly Bear by Pushing Arm Down Its Throat

Chase Dellwo recalled an old article he'd read
By Neal Colgrass,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 5, 2015 6:00 PM CDT
Guy Fights Off Grizzly Bear by Pushing Arm Down Its Throat
Chase Dellwo, 26, poses for a photo at Benefis Health System in Great Falls, Mont., Sunday, Oct. 4, 2015.    (Jo Dee Black/The Great Falls Tribune via AP)

A bow hunter is alive and fairly well after surviving a grizzly bear attack, but what's amazing is how he fought back. Chase Dellwo, 26, was hunting with his brother near the town of Choteau, Montana, on Saturday when they saw a herd of elk, the Great Falls Tribune reports. So Dellwo walked along a slim creek bed in an attempt to move the animals toward a ridge where his brother, Shane, was waiting. That's when Chase noticed a bear waking up just a few feet in front of him. The bear likely hadn't noticed him because of wind, snow, and rain at the time, the AP reports. And Chase had no time to draw back the arrow in his bow.

The bear swiftly knocked Chase over, bit him on the back of the head, then bit his leg "and gave it a pretty good shake and threw me a ways," he says. But when the bear attacked again, Chase remembered an article his grandmother once gave him about how big animals have poor gag reflexes—so he pushed his right arm down the bear's throat. "It worked," the Tribune says. "The bear left." Shane got Chase to a hospital, where he's recovering with various injuries and at least two hundred stitches and staples in his head. "I want everyone to know that it wasn't the bear's fault, he was as scared as I was," Chase says. (More bear attack stories.)

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