A woman bitten on the buttocks by a black bear has described how she fought the animal off with her feet, and how her phone may have prevented more severe injuries.
Maggie Schwartz, a lawyer from Jackson, Wyoming, was hiking Teton Pass on August 10 with her dog Marta and another pup along the History Trail – a route she says she hikes almost every day – when she rounded a corner and came face-to-face with a black bear cub hidden in bushes.
Mother bear charges from the brush
Within fractions of a second, the cub's mother charged out of thick brush and knocked her to the ground. Schwartz told Outside Magazine: "I must have flipped myself over onto my back, because I remember being on my back and her continuing towards me."
She recalled: "I put my feet up on her chest and was screaming and fumbling around." As she lay trapped, the bear bit her on the buttocks, leaving three deep puncture wounds.
Bear spray stops the attack
Schwartz managed to grab her bear spray and blast it into the animal's face. "She turned around and left immediately," she said, with her Fitbit later showing a sharp spike in heart rate. She still cannot believe she got the spray out in time: "I'm thinking maybe she looked up to see where the dogs were, which gave me the chance."
The bear fled downhill. Schwartz went uphill. "I wasn't really feeling pain at that point," she said. At the car park, she was helped by a local ski patroller.
Treatment and a lucky escape
Schwartz said: "I was really embarrassed that the bite was on my butt and that this had just happened. I didn't really want to show him, but he was so professional." When her mother arrived, "I just started bawling," she added. "I completely lost it."
She was treated at St John's Health in Jackson. Doctors treated puncture wounds and heavy scratches across her thighs, back, neck and elbow. With bear hair embedded deep in her skin, a nurse had to remove a small section of flesh. Her wounds were left open without stitches to reduce infection risk, and she was given a tetanus shot and antibiotics.
Investigators noticed her wounds showed three tooth marks, but a bear bite usually leaves four. It was later concluded the bear had ripped off her back pocket, and the missing tooth mark was pressed into the cracked phone screen, which likely shielded her flesh.
