17 September 2013

What Caliber Cell Phone..?

Winnipeg man wards off polar bear with cellphone

Cornered by a polar bear that had already swatted and bitten him, a desperate Garett Kolsun turned to the only device he could think of and thrust his cellphone into the raging bear's face, distracting it long enough for him to escape.

Kolsun is grateful to be alive today after his encounter with a polar bear in Churchill, Man., on Saturday. The Winnipeg man went to Churchill two weeks ago for a job, his first time in the northern town.

While walking to where he was staying around 1:30 Saturday morning, Kolsun noticed something out of the corner of his eye.

"As I looked over, I could see a polar bear charging me. It was running full tilt towards me," he said Monday, his voice still raspy from yelling. "So I turned to try to run to find someplace safe to go. But where I was there was no place to really go."

(snip) "So I turned on the bear and it just kept charging. It came up closer and I started yelling and screaming and trying to raise my arms up to keep the bear away from me as best I could," he said. "I kept running in circles and backwards and yelling, hollering for help and everything else."

Desperate Move

He ran up to a bakery, and tried kicking open the front door.

"At that point the bear was basically right on top of me," he said. "I was yelling and screaming, trying to keep it away from me. Throughout all this it had swatted at me a few times and it had bit me."

"So I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket, turned it on and the screen lit up," he said. "I turned it towards the bear, put it in his face and it stepped back."

It turned the tide.

"When it stepped back, luckily it knocked over a planter. It startled the bear and it turned its head. So when it did, I just ran."

There's more at the link, but you get the point.

7 comments:

Chickenmom said...

Now that IS scary! We have black bears here all the time mostly early in the morning and evening. Would not want to see one of those huge polar bears, though.

Rev. Paul said...

Chickenmom, polar bears are just plain scary. They're the only ones that will actively hunt humans, too.

PioneerPreppy said...

Ya know if I lived anywhere near bears I would always be armed with something more than a cell phone. Why even bear sightings around here were enough for me to begin carrying again.

Matt said...

He probably had Miley Cyrus gyrating on the screen....

Rev. Paul said...

Preppy, bears are a principal reason for us to carry up here, too. I can't speak to the cell-phone carrying guy in Manitoba. Canada, eh?

Matt, it's entirely possible.

Corey said...

The bear was struck by the fact that the guy was getting service in Churchill? And isn't Churchill like the polar bear capital of the world? They have a polar bear jail there for heavens sake.

Rev. Paul said...

There's no accounting for an adrenaline-fueled response to a bear attack. But I'm thinking this guy was WAY more lucky than good.