Attacked hunter tried to hide from bear

BOZEMAN – Bow hunter Dustin Flack, of Belgrade, knew he was in trouble when he spotted a grizzly bear and her three cubs out of the corner of his eye.

Flack, 27, said the bears were 20 yards to 25 yards away and kept walking in his direction. Flack stood still behind a tree.

But when the bear was directly on the other side of the tree, with a trunk of just 8 inches in diameter, Flack felt he had no choice but to try to climb the tree.

That’s when the bear attacked.

“She was up on her back legs, trying to bite me,” Flack told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle on Friday.

He said he first screamed and tried to kick the bear in the face. But the bear bit him, first in the toes and then bone-deep into his shin and calf.

“She ripped the tree in half and pulled me down with it,” he said.

“When I hit the ground, I curled up into a fetal position and put my hands behind my neck,” Flack said.

The bear also clawed or bit him on the back and then laid its face alongside his cheek. “She stood there about 15 seconds, and then she was gone,” said Flack, who didn’t move for five minutes and spent another 15 minutes in a tree before beginning the 2-mile-long hike back to his vehicle.

As he approached the road he spotted a man hiking up the trail. The man carried Flack’s gear, helped him back to his vehicle and called an ambulance.

Flack underwent surgery on his leg Friday.

State and federal officials closed areas in the Gallatin National Forest and Yellowstone National Park after the attack