A skier smashed by a brown bear was hoisted to safety outside Alaska’s offshore over the weekend, officials said.
The man was stable in a hospital after Saturday’s malice on a mountain northwest of Haines, in the southeastern part of the state, near the top of the Alaskan handle, the Coast Guard and state troops said.
The skier, who sustained injuries to his head and hands, was airlifted by Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter crew, the guard said in a statement.
He was attacked while walking with two other skiers on a mountain to ski down there and unknowingly ran into a hollow with a brown bear and his cubs, Alaska State Troopers said in a report.
The bear left the pit, attacked one of the skiers who had rolled down the hill and then left, the troops said.
The skiers were about 1600 meters high in what was described as steep terrain. The other two skiers were not injured and went down the mountain on their own, officials said.
The Coast Guard said they were well prepared and could seek help in 15 degrees again with sunset.
“Their satellite communications device provided the exact GPS coordinates and altitude of their location. Equally important was that they had brightly colored material to indicate the helicopter as we approached,” said lt.kmd. Will Sirokman, who was co-pilot in the rescue, said in a statement. “It was absolutely essential to find us on time.”
The State Department of Fish and Wildlife said bear attacks are rare.
The Alaska Division of Epidemiology in a 2019 study on bear attacks in the state identified ten deaths from eight bear attacks between 2000 and 2017.
Sixty-eight people were admitted to hospital due to injuries due to 66 bear attacks, according to the report. The authors noted that there were important limitations in the review, such as injuries treated in the field and different levels of detail in death reports.
At least two people were killed by bears in Alaska in 2020. A man was killed in the Hope area near Hope on July 26, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife said, and an Ohio man on a moose hunt was killed by a bear in Wrangell in September. -St. Elias National Park and Conservation.
