Bear claws 19-year-old’s face and chest through window of Crestline home
-
Click here to listen to this article - Share via
See more from the L.A. Times in Google Search. Set us as preferred
- The bear attack occurred at a home in Crestline, a mountain community in San Bernardino County.
- Darah Wood said the bear took a swipe at her son, causing deep lacerations to his face that required stitches.
- California Department of Fish and Wildlife officers are trying to track down and capture the bear.
Darah Wood was approaching her 19-year-old son’s room early Monday when he stormed out with blood on his face.
A nosebleed, she thought. But when she peeked into his room, she saw a large black bear trying to get in through a window.
“The bear had reached in and clawed him,” she said in a phone interview. “There were a few surface-level scratches on his stomach and chest, but he had really gotten his face.”
She said she scared the bear away by screaming and banging a pot with a wooden spoon.
A California couple attacked by a bear outside their eastern Sierra Nevada home have survived the encounter after fighting off the animal with a water bottle and a hatchet, authorities said.
Paramedics arrived and took her son, Kevin, who is autistic, to Loma Linda University Medical Center — a 39-minute drive from their home in Crestline, a mountain community in San Bernardino County.
Wood said the bear’s claws had opened her son’s upper-right lip and nostril, requiring stitches. She said his mouth was swollen but that he was out of the hospital and recovering Wednesday.
Although bear attacks are rare, the incident has rattled some residents in the small mountain community and sparked a probe by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
As part of their investigation, wildlife officers took a collection of potential DNA evidence from Kevin Wood and the residence and submitted the samples to a lab, the agency said in a written statement.
“The DNA results have come back from the lab, and CDFW wildlife officers will now be attempting to capture the offending bear,” the agency said.
A San Diego man said he felt lucky to be alive and recovering at home this week after surviving a grizzly bear attack at Glacier National Park on May 28.
Darah Wood’s mother, Deena, said things could have been worse. She said she and her family have lived at the Crestline home since the late 1970s and have never experienced a bear attack.
The Woods said bears are known to wander into people’s backyards, often drawn by gardens and ponds, but that they typically flee at the sight of humans.
“But this guy is a little different,” Deena Wood said.
She believes the bear that attacked her grandson may be the same one she saw in a pond near their home less than a week ago. She said that bear wasn’t easily scared.
“He just got out and lumbered away real slowly,” she said. “So he’s a little brazen, I would say.”
“It kinda charged her,” said Monrovia Police Lt. Kevin Oberon. Police describe the black bear encounter as unusual.
Wildlife experts say human-bear conflicts are the result of people moving deeper into the wildlands, and that bears that wander into neighborhoods are often harmless and easy to frighten.
But some bears, experts note, adjust to human routines such as which days trash cans are put out so they can find food. Others are unafraid and can kill livestock, damage property and pose a public safety threat.
The Woods said they don’t wish harm on the bear but they hope that wildlife officers will be able to track it down so that it doesn’t hurt anyone else.
More From the Los Angeles Times
Podcasts
William Mulholland was the water boss who made L.A. possible. His reputation gave him unchecked authority as a dam builder. In 1928, that led to one of America’s deadliest disasters--and the question of whether it was a crime.
It started as a ploy to scare Texas out of redrawing its congressional map and ended with California voters approving a new map of their own, one that could hat could help alter the balance of power in Washington.
On this week’s episode of Boiling Point, Miranda Green speaks with Los Angeles Times climate reporter Hayley Smith about how AI bots are meddling in California’s clean energy policymaking.
