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Post date: Oct 6, 2014 6:17:13 PM
Lindsey Seavert, KARE 1:05 a.m. EDT September 29, 2014
DUXBURY, Minn. – It hit him like a linebacker and threw him on the ground.
That's how a hunter narrowly escaping a 525 pound black bear described the horror when a wounded bear attacked his friend in a dense swamp area near Duxbury, Minnesota early Saturday morning.
"You go into the woods, not thinking this will ever happen, legally and humanely go after a bear you shot, and it turned bad," said Craig Lindstrom, of Wyoming, Minnesota.
Lindstrom said he and several longtime hunting buddies shot a black bear with a bow and arrow Friday evening, and then waited four hours to track it several miles from their hunting camp. Because of the warm temperatures, Lindstrom and two others decided to find the bear around 11:30 p.m., worrying the meat would spoil overnight. They began to follow a blood trail in the darkness and within a half hour, they found the bear laying on the ground. It suddenly charged.
"And that's when they yelled it's big and it's coming your way. All of the sudden I heard him screaming -- felt like 10 minutes, but was probably two minutes -- literally screaming, screaming and you knew he was being mauled," said Lindstrom.
Lindstrom began to pray aloud, and soon realized his friend was still alive with a knife in his hand.
"He made that thing die because he stabbed it about 20 times while it was chewing on his arm. He kept stabbing it and stabbing it and stabbing it and it was pounding on him, a quarter of a ton -- a 525 pound bear pounding on him," said Lindstrom. "And I'm telling you, he walked out. He walked out."
The victim was able to walk out due to the quick thinking of Lindstrom, a Chisago City firefighter, who is trained in emergency response. He had a backpack full of rope and bungee cords.
"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."
Lindstrom said it took more than three hours to lead his friend a half mile out of the swamp area towards help where they were finally able to place a 911 call to the Pine County Sheriff's Office.
"His will to keep going forward, 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," said Lindstrom.
The victim was flown to North Memorial Hospital in Robbinsdale. Lindstrom said he suffered two broken arms, wounds on his face, jaw, stomach and legs and will undergo more surgery, but is in stable condition.
The bear died about 50 yards from where it was stabbed. Lindstrom says it took ten men five hours to drag it back to camp. Lindstrom says looking back, the group should have backed off on finding the bear, or forgot about the possibility of the rotting meat, but the story of survival has them all looking forward.
"We are going to mount that thing," said Lindstrom. "So this will be another story. It just happens to be the biggest one."
Lindstrom said his group is licensed to hunt bear and registers baiting stations with the Minnesota DNR. He added that his friend should heal in time for deer hunting season and the group won't hesitate to head back out again.
"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.
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