Magic beans and a bear

It's all about these magic seeds I traded the Volkswagen for. The guy said great riches await. Would my bear protection rifle work on an ogre?

OK, bad segue, but here goes. Quite a story beginning Saturday night. Seven teenagers on a 30-day wilderness trip with the National Outdoor Leadership School were attacked by a grizzly bear right in the neighborhood of the East Pole. They had reached the last week of their experience where they are left to their own devices by the adult supervisors after three weeks of intense wilderness skills training. They had found themselves in thick brush and thinking better of that, began wading a stream instead.

 The fellow in the lead disappeared around a bend and the next thing anyone heard was growling and screaming. The bear dropped that fellow and went after the others, eventually injuring four, two of whom had life-threatening injuries. Then the bear went back and threw the first boy around again before disappearing. They said it was all over in a minute. They had some bear spray but not one could get one out in time to do any good, it all happened so fast.

But these kids, all between 16 and 19 kept their cool. They set off their emergency locater beacon, made a camp, tended to the severely wounded as best they could and within an hour a trooper helicopter found them. The trooper said the two most severely wounded were beyond his expertise and called for a medevac with trained paramedics on board. Four of the kids left with the first helicopter while the trooper and a 16-year old with paramedic training stayed with the two who were more severely hurt. Shortly those four were lifted out. This is the full story.

If you look at the map, the East Pole is directly south of the Talkeetna River from where the incident is located.

These things happen occasionally in the Alaska wilds, that is accepted. What is exceptional here is how these kids reacted. Though some made mistakes during the attack itself, once it was over they used every skill they had just learned (one assumes the skills are new) and did the right thing, keeping their heads, tending to their injured comrades, summoning help and just performing well under intense pressure. At this writing two remain hospitalized, one still in serious condition. But it looks like all will survive. Imagine the look on a teacher's face after reading what these kids write in the "what I did this summer" essay when they get back to school.