A father and son hunting couple were attacked by a giant grizzly bear in the Alaskan wilderness over the weekend, causing one of them to accidentally shoot himself in the leg.
Tyler Johnson, 32, and his father, now an Alaska wildlife agent, began their fateful journey last Thursday to a popular trail on the Kenai Peninsula near Anchorage.
Two days later, on Saturday, August 17, the duo ventured onto Resurrection Trail in search of hunting black bears, sheep and possibly wolves, Tyler explained in an interview with Alaska News Source.
After several hours of walking, making as little noise as possible, they came across a large grizzly bear. The animal first attacked Tyler’s father, but then changed its mind and headed towards him.
The bear attacked him, so Tyler shot it seven times in the head and neck, killing it. In the midst of the chaos, he also shot himself in the leg.
“I would shoot myself in the leg again if I hit the bear,” he said.
Pictured: The bear that attacked Tyler Johnson and his father moments after Tyler was able to shoot it dead.
Tyler recorded himself and his father right after the attack, giving a brief description of what happened and showing the dead bear.
Shortly after the terrifying confrontation, Tyler had the presence of mind to record a video of himself.
He panned the area of the attack, showing the tall grass he and his father were walking through. He also recorded the dead bear, which was lying on its side.
“I’m trying to get my heart rate a little slower right now,” Tyler said.
Tyler explained in the 34-minute interview following the attack that he was born and raised in Sterling, Alaska, a small town also on the Kenai Peninsula.
He moved to Austin, Texas, a month ago with his wife and two-year-old son, but decided to return last week to go hunting with his father.
Tyler explained that he had never hiked the Resurrection Trail and had heard that it was beautiful, so he and his father decided to do it.
They went for a hike on Thursday and spent all day Friday hunting, but they didn’t catch anything.
They went out hunting again on Saturday because it was “a beautiful day,” with temperatures around 64 degrees.
After hiking for a while, the flags marking the trail became increasingly farther apart and harder to find, Tyler said. They started losing the flags around 2:30 p.m.
Tyler’s father, pictured, is the one who made the SOS call to wildlife officers who then provided first aid to his son.
Tyler appears in the photo with his wife and son, who is two years old.
Alaska wildlife agents would receive an SOS call from Tyler’s father reporting the bear attack just a half-hour later, according to a bulletin from Alaska Department of State agents.
Tyler then spotted a clearing in some bushes that led to a more visible trail. The trail, he said, had evidence of animals there. They saw elk tracks, but no bear tracks.
“I didn’t suspect I was going to encounter a grizzly bear,” he said.
His father caught sight of the flag after seeing the elk tracks and began marching toward it. He described the path as a tunnel of bushes and followed his father through it.
As he crossed the clearing into a field of knee-high golden grass, his father called out, “Bear!”
“Almost at the same time, the bear let out its growl,” he said. “If you’ve ever heard a grizzly bear… it’s shocking.”
The bear was between him and his father, and to Tyler’s left.
“It wasn’t even a warning growl… he just ran towards my dad.”
In an interview with Alaska’s News Source just days after he was nearly killed by a bear, Tyler reenacts the moment it scratched his shoulder.
Tyler points to the bullet hole in his leg. He said he shot himself after the bear lunged at him.
“It was the same color as the golden grass,” Tyler said. “I saw the head suddenly appear. I guess it was lying in the grass and it surprised us as much as it surprised us.”
His father had a Glock 40 on his chest and a special backpack with neck protection designed specifically to protect against bear attacks.
Tyler said his father was yelling at the bear as it came toward him, causing it to “stop and turn toward me.”
At the time, Tyler had his hand on his gun, and when the bear attacked him, he was initially unable to retrieve the gun.
“It was about me to you,” Tyler said, referencing the distance between himself and the interviewer, “when it somehow got elevated.”
He said the attack happened so fast it was difficult to describe accurately, but based on the injuries he sustained, he believes the bear scratched him on the shoulder and legs.
Moments later, the bear threw him to the side and “grabbed” his right quadriceps.
“At that point I fell backwards, it was like I had been hit by a train,” he said. “My feet went over my head and the train bit into my calf as I fell backwards.”
As he fell, he managed to pull out his gun. That’s when, he says, he shot himself in the leg.
Once the bear was on top of him, Tyler delivered the killing blows to the beast.
Here, Tyler recalls the moment the bear lunged at him and knocked him to the ground.
Tyler fired seven shots at the bear. He said the last shot was the one that killed it and brought it to the ground.
“At that point I fired seven bullets into his chest and head. I’m talking about anything I could hit.”
He explained that his father, who is an experienced hunter and was the one who trained him to be a nature lover, did not sit idly by while all this was happening.
The elder Johnson took a different angle so as not to accidentally hit his son and began firing his Glock at the bear as well.
Tyler said the seventh bullet was the one that killed the bear, although he is not sure if the bullet hit its head or spine.
‘I remember noticing a difference between an angry bear and a bear that was falling.’
Once the bear was officially dead, Tyler informed his father that he had shot himself. Luckily, he brought a first aid kit with him and was able to treat the gunshot wound by wrapping a tourniquet around his leg.
He called the wound to his leg “a million-dollar wound” because the bullet missed any arteries or bones and exited the other side of his quadriceps.
Tyler, left, and his father, right, pose for a cute photo with Tyler’s son.
Tyler said the attack happened around 2:58 p.m., and two minutes later, wildlife officers received a report of the attack.
According to the troopers’ report, officers administered first aid to Tyler in the field before he was transported to an Anchorage hospital by helicopter.
Troopers told Alaska’s News Source that Tyler was in stable condition as of Monday, two days after the attack.
She is also treating the bite wound with amoxicillin to prevent possible infection.
For now, Tyler is still in Alaska, but plans to return to his family in Austin later this week.
“I’m going to miss Alaska. It’s definitely left some scars on me over the last few months that remind me of it. It’s been a terrible summer,” Tyler said.
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