Teen on bear attack: 'My dad was screaming'

The father and daughter who survived a bear mauling in Glacier National Park last month recalled the attack Wednesday in appearances on two national news shows.

Johan Otter, 44, and his 18-year-old daughter Jenna were interviewed from La Jolla, Calif., on NBC's "The Today Show" and ABC's "Good Morning America." While Johan Otter held a press conference at a Seattle hospital last week, his daughter made her first public comments about the incident during Wednesday's interviews.

"My dad was screaming, and that's like one of the worst sounds in the world you can hear," she said, recounting the attack in an interview with Katie Couric on "Today."

In talking with "Good Morning America" host Charles Gibson, both displayed ALERT helicopter T-shirts from Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

The Otters were hiking Aug. 25 on the Grinnell Glacier Trail when they rounded a corner and Jenna encountered a female grizzly bear with two cubs about five feet away.

Her father said he remembers his daughter saying "Oh no!" and then the grizzly bear "was into my thigh within a half second."

He said he attempted to keep the bear's attention diverted from his daughter, at one point gripping the bear with one hand while trying to strike it in the head with a rock.

"I'm doing really good because my dad took the brunt of it himself," said Jenna, who was wearing a torso brace and had obvious wounds to her right arm and a wound from the right corner of her mouth across her cheek.

Johan Otter wore a "halo" brace to stabilize his head because of several fractured vertebrae, and his damaged right eye was covered.

In addition to inflicting severe bite wounds to Otter's thigh and arms, the bear bit into his head, tearing away part of his scalp. Otter said that when the bear was biting his head, he could feel a tooth grinding into his skull.

The attack lasted about five minutes, and eventually Johan Otter intentionally fell off the trail, tumbling down a rocky embankment, in an effort to escape the bear. The physical therapist from Escondido, Calif., said he shouted at his daughter to get off the trail, too, and in doing so attracted the bear's attention again.

But eventually the bear went after Jenna, who had retreated to a bush off the trail, where she said she was silent and curled up in a fetal position.

"I think the bear was satisfied with the injuries it inflicted on my dad so then it came over to me," she said.

She told of trying to push the hovering bear away.

"It grabbed my face and tore me this way, then it grabbed my shoulder and tore me the other way," she said. "I think there was enough blood everywhere to make the bear think or be satisfied that we were adequately injured or dead, so we weren't going to hurt its cubs, so it just left."

"You do whatever you have to to protect your own," Johan Otter said at one point, apparently referring to his actions as well as those of the mother grizzly.

The interviews on both shows were brief, and the Otters did not mention the extensive efforts involved with their rescues.

About 20 park rangers were involved in the initial response and providing first aid.

The ALERT helicopter did short-haul extractions from the largely inaccessible trailside area using a manned sling tethered beneath the helicopter.

It was more than six hours from the time they were attacked until they arrived at Kalispell Regional Medical Center.

Park officials have yet to locate the bears involved in the incident, which prompted a temporary closure of trails in the Many Glacier Valley.

The attack attracted considerable media attention from across the country, according to Kalispell Regional Medical Center spokesman Jim Oliverson, who fielded interview inquiries from the morning news shows as well as other national programs such as "Inside Edition."

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com

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