An Arizona mother was counting her blessings Monday after her teenage son escaped a black bear that broke into her family’s cabin with just a few nasty scratches on his face and arm.
“This really could have been a lot worse,” Carol Edington Hawkins told NBC News. “We still can’t believe this happened, but we also feel very blessed.”
Hawkins said her 15-year-old son, Brigham, was “just relaxing” Thursday night in one of the two cabins his parents have on their Alpine property when the bear “came through the front door and slapped the his head.”
“The front door was open to let in the cool night air,” Hawkins said. “Brigham was watching YouTube and didn’t realize what was going on.”
But the minute the bear attacked, Brigham “started screaming,” she said. “I hit him in the nose and cheek and then I went ahead and hit him in the forehead and the top of his head.”
His 18-year-old brother, Parker, heard the screams and ran out of the other cabin, their mother said.
“Parker at first thought it was some kind of big dog,” Hawkins said. “Then the bear saw Parker and started chasing him. That gave Brigham time to slam the door to his cabin.”
Parker, Hawkins said, returned to the other cabin with the bear breathing down his neck.
“He was hanging around there for a while as we watched him through the window,” Hawkins said of the bear. “Then he sat on a couch on the porch and just looked around. It was crazy.”
Hawkins said that while she called 911 and a neighbor for help, her husband, Shane, waited for the bear to look away and then ran to the cabin where Brigham was hiding.
“He slammed the door in the bear’s face,” she said.
When agents of Arizona Game and Fish Department arrived, the bear was no longer besieging the cabins.
“After arriving on scene, AZGFD wildlife officers were able to quickly locate and dispatch the bear,” the agency said in a statement.
The bear was a male about 3 years old and its carcass will be tested for disease.
Hawkins said her son “is doing better” and has already received a round of rabies shots as a precaution. She said she doesn’t know why the bear attacked.
“He might just be hungry,” she said. “But that’s not a normal way for a bear to behave.”
If Parker hadn’t intervened, Brigham could have died, Hawkins said.
“He has a neurological disorder and would not have been able to escape the bear,” she said. “It took a few miracles happening at the same time to save him.”
Of 16 bear attacks on people in Arizona since 1990, two have been fatal, according to the Department of Game and Fish. Tthe most recent fatality occurred last year in Prescott, where a 66-year-old man, drinking a morning cup of coffee in a wooded area where he was building a cabin, was attacked by a black bear.
Earlier this month, on May 19, a hiker exploring the backcountry of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming was attacked by a grizzly bear. The 35-year-old Massachusetts man also survived.
It’s not yet summer and two bear attacks have already been reported.
In both cases, humans emerged from the bloody man-versus-beast clashes, but still alive. The same could not be said for one of the bears.
Most recently, a 15-year-old Arizona teenager was sitting in his family’s cabin Thursday in the town of Alpine when a black bear burst inside through an open door and slapped him in the face, the Arizona Game and Fish Department reported.
“He then exited the cabin and approached other family members before entering the cabin a second time and hitting the victim on the arm,” the agency said in a statement.
The boy’s family was able to scare off the bear, and AZGFD wildlife officers arrived a short time later and “were able to quickly locate and dispatch the bear.”
“The bear was a male black bear approximately 3 years old,” according to the agency. “The carcass will be examined and tested for disease by the department’s wildlife health experts.”
Meanwhile, the boy’s family counted their blessings.
This article was originally published in NBCNews. with
