A father-son pair of hunters were attacked by a giant grizzly bear in the wilderness of Alaska over the weekend, which led to one of them accidentally shooting himself in the leg.
Tyler Johnson, 32, and his father, who is a current Alaska Wildlife Trooper, began their fateful trip last Thursday into a popular trail on the Kenai Peninsula, which is right near Anchorage.
Two days later on Saturday, August 17, the duo ventured onto Resurrection Trail looking to hunt black bears sheep and potentially wolves, Tyler explained in an interview with Alaska’s News Source.
Hours into the hike, where they kept noise to a minimum, they were confronted with a large brown bear. The animal charged at Tyler’s father first, but then changed its mind and headed for Tyler.
The bear tackled him, which led to Tyler firing seven rounds into its head and neck, killing it. Amid the chaos, he also shot himself in the leg.
‘I would shoot myself through the leg again if it hit the bear,’ he said.
Shortly after the terrifying confrontation, Tyler had the presence of mind to record a video of himself.
He panned around the area of the attack, showing the tall grass he and his father were hiking through. He also recorded the dead bear, which was lying on its side.
‘I’m trying to get my heart rate a little slower right now,’ Tyler said.
Tyler explained in the 34-minute-long interview after the attack that he was born and raised in Sterling, Alaska, a small town also on the Kenai Peninsula.
He moved to Austin, Texas, a month ago with his wife and two-year-old son, but decided to make the trip back last week to go hunting with his dad.
Tyler explained that he had never hiked Resurrection Trail and heard it was gorgeous, so he and his dad decided to take it.
They hiked in on Thursday and spent all day on Friday hunting but didn’t catch anything.
They went back out on Saturday to hunt because it was ‘a beautiful day,’ with temperatures reaching around 64 degrees.
Once they had been hiking for a while, the flags marking the trail got farther apart and harder to find, Tyler said. They started losing the flags around 2:30pm.
Alaska Wildlife Troopers would receive an SOS call from Tyler’s father reporting the bear attack just a half hour later, according to a bulletin from the Alaska Department of State Troopers.
Tyler then saw a clearing through some bushes that led to a more visible path. The path, he said, had evidence of animals being there. They saw moose prints, but no bear tracks.
‘I wasn’t suspecting to run into a brown bear,’ he said.
His dad caught a glimpse of the flag after seeing the moose prints and started marching toward it. He described the path as a tunnel of bushes, and he followed his father through it.
When he stepped through the clearing that led to a field of knee-high golden grass, that’s when his father yelled ‘bear!’
‘Almost simultaneously, the bear did its growl,’ he said. ‘If you’ve ever heard a grizzly…it’s shocking.’
The bear was between him and his father, and on Tyler’s left.
‘It wasn’t even a warning growl…it just sprinted towards my dad.’
‘It was the same color as the golden grass,’ Tyler said. ‘I just saw the head pop up. I can only assume it was laying down in the grass and we surprised it as much as it surprised us.’
His dad had a Glock 40 on his chest and a special backpack with neck protection specifically meant to protect against bear attacks.
Tyler said his dad was yelling at the bear as it came for him, which got it to ‘put on his brakes and turn towards me.’
Tyler had his hand on his gun at this point, and when the bear charged him, he failed to retrieve the weapon at first.
‘It was about from me to you,’ Tyler said, referencing the distance between him and the interviewer, ‘when it kind of lunged up.’
He said the attack happened so quick that it was hard to describe accurately. But based on the injuries he received, he believes the bear clawed him on his shoulder and on his legs.
Moments later, the bear knocked him sideways and ‘gripped’ his right quad.
‘I was falling backwards at this time, it was like getting hit by a train,’ he said. ‘My feet went over my head, and it put its teeth into my calf as I was falling backwards.’
As he was falling, he managed to pull his gun out. This is when he believes he shot himself in the leg.
Once the bear was on top of him, Tyler dealt the killing blows to the beast.
‘That’s when I put seven rounds into its chest and head area. I mean anything that I can hit.’
He explained that his dad, who’s an experienced hunter and was the one who trained him to be an outdoorsman, wasn’t just standing idly by as all of this was happening.
The elder Johnson took a different angle so he wouldn’t accidentally hit his son and began firing his Glock at the bear as well.
Tyler said the seventh round was the one that killed the bear, though he’s unsure if the bullet struck its head or the spine.
‘I remember noticing a difference between a pissed off bear and a bear that’s falling over.’
Once the bear was officially dead, Tyler informed his dad that he shot himself. Luckily, he brought a trauma kit with him and was able to treat his bullet hole wound by wrapping his leg with a tourniquet.
He called the injury to his leg ‘a million dollar wound’ because the bullet missed arteries and bones and exited out the other side of his quad.
Tyler said the attack happened around 2:58pm, and two minutes later, wildlife troopers received a report about the attack.
According to the troopers’ report, officers administered first aid on Tyler in the field before he was transported to Anchorage hospital in a helicopter.
Troopers told Alaska’s News Source that Tyler was in stable condition as of Monday, two days after the mauling.
He’s also treating his bite wound with amoxicillin to prevent possible infections.
As of now, Tyler is still in Alaska but plans to get back to his family in Austin later this week.
‘I’m going to miss Alaska. It’s definitely given me a few scars in the past couple months to remind me of her. It’s been a hell of a summer,’ Tyler said.