LONDON, Ont. - A London woman who awoke to a bear chewing on her arm survived by playing dead during the animal's violent late-night rampage through a U.S. campground Tuesday.
The remarkably calm reaction of 58-year-old Deb Freele probably saved her life during the attack, one of several that left another camper dead in the campsite near Yellowstone Park.
"I thought I was going to be dinner," Freele told Reuters in an interview from her hospital bed in Cody, Wyo. "Within hundredths of a second, I felt the teeth in my arm, heard bones breaking. I screamed and that seemed to aggravate him.
"So I decided to play dead and mean it."
Though that kind of presence of mind may stun many people, Freele's son, John, told QMI Agency late Wednesday he's not surprised at all: His mom, an outdoors aficionado, has advised him in the past to react in just that manner if a bear attacks.
He was shocked when he first learned of the attack - his parents are on a month-long camping trip in the U.S. that started in late June.
"We've always been a camping family so we've known what to do but you never really know until you're in a situation like that," said Freele's other son William, 24.
"I'm really glad she was able to think clearly in such a high-stress moment."
Freele told Reuters she felt the bear's jaws relax and, within several seconds, "he just dropped me and walked away."
Freele was one of three people attacked by a bear in the pre-dawn hours at the Soda Butte campground in Gallatin National Forest in Montana.
One man was killed and another was injured. Freele suffered multiple bite marks on her left arm, which was broken in the 40-second attack.
Her husband, asleep in a nearby tent, didn't wake up until it was over.
While Freele believes it was a grizzly that attacked her, wildlife officials are unsure if it may have been a black bear.
Early indications from an investigation by Montana wildlife officials found no evidence of food at the campsites or in tents, which is a magnet for bears.
Despite the tense event, Freele apparently has no intention of cutting her camping trip short, William said.
"She just seems pretty stubborn," he said. "She wants to finish the trip, doesn't want to cut it short."
- with files from Reuters and Patrick Maloney alex.weber@sunmedia.ca
