Wild isn't it?

Man Armed With Knife Kills Hungry Bear

WILLIAMS LAKE, British Columbia (AP) -- John Hirsch went toe-to-claw with a black bear - and won.

Hirsch had only a 3 1/2-inch knife blade when he came across the bear in his backyard in Williams Lake, about 190 miles northeast of Vancouver.

"He came out of nowhere," said Hirsch, 61, an avid hunter and outdoorsman.

"I can remember thinking that he's not stopping - he's coming," said Hirsch. "I just didn't feel I had any place to go."

He was attacked Oct. 29 while checking on the 15 turkeys he and his wife, Sharon, raise on their spread.

As the bear began to circle him, Hirsch faced it like a wrestler in a ring.

"It was like a knife fight that you'd see in an old-time Western," he said. The bear swatted out at him, but each time it lunged, he managed to stab it.

"I couldn't tell you if the fight lasted three seconds or three minutes," Hirsch said.

Three stabs to the bear's chest and one to its neck finally did the bruin in.

It stood about 5 foot 7 inches to Hirsch's 5 feet 9 inches and weighed 200 pounds, according to conservation officers who inspected it.

"I can say it sure looked smaller the next morning than it did during the fight," said Hirsch.

The bear was in poor shape, suffering from a severed tongue and broken jaw, the conservation officer said. Its stomach was empty and the bear had little fat on it.

Hirsch, a retired electrical foreman at B.C. Hydro, suffered a scratch to the top of his head and scratches to his back - and a shredded T-shirt.

As for the battle itself, Hirsch said it never occurred to him that he would lose to the bear.

"I just felt that however long this took, I was going to come out OK," he said. "I always felt that I was at least his equal."

Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

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>>>"I couldn't tell you if the fight lasted three seconds or three minutes," Hirsch said.<<<

>>>"I can say it sure looked smaller the next morning than it did during the fight," said Hirsch.<<<

It's interesting how the brain, which normally processes an incredible amount of data about our immediate environment and periphery, can suddenly snap into focus during an emergency. I'm sure that the awareness of time and objects in his peripheral vision were simply blotted out by his brain as it processed solely the information required for survival. Time itself is a perception based phenomena that's relative to our awareness of the environment (movement, change, etc.). I'm sure when folks talk about how events occur in slow motion in an emergency, it's because the brain is only processing information related to the event itself, and blots out other information that provides a baseline reference to "normal" time.

This change in focus in an emergency is part of the "fight or flight" syndrome. It is only in part a brain phenomenon. Much of it is actually due to adrenal and pituitary gland secretions at the moment of threat. Actually, eye focus and peripheral vision changes [so you tunnel in on the threat and don't notice the surroundings]. Peripheral blood supply (to fingers and hands) stops and gets forced into the trunk of the body [so you can survive injuries to extremities better while protecting the core, and probably so you feel little pain at the time]. Blood pressure changes, respiration changes, and digestion ceases. Bladder and bowel evacuation in severe stress is actually a survival mechanism. After the crisis has passed, the nausea, trembling, sick feeling is probably as much a function of adrenalin "poisoning" or overload as it is of fear... which usually sets in many hours or days later.

Learning to modify one's "fight/flight" response syndrome is the critical element to psychological rehabilitation of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder victims, because they often essentially remain in the "fight/flight" mode and don't "reset". My bet is that the guy in the news story will have a startle reaction to anything brown/black and furry for some time!

Unfortunately, the visual tunneling can have a lethal effect on a law enforcement officer or soldier in a combat situation. I've worked with several who are so focused on the "perpetrator" and sight picture that they don't see the bad guys coming from the periphery. Good training actually teaches them to "break" the tunnel vision.

Thanks for the explanation. <img src="images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

You're welcome, Willie

Forgive me for getting so didactic here. I just have a great interest in the psychological elements of survivors. I've treated over a hundred people who have developed psycholgical complications after surviving traumas both inflicted by humans and inflicted by nature. Couldn't help but jump in.