Quick Action By Eleven Year Old Saves Family From a Bear
Although in the lower 48 states, bear attacks are few and far between, the same cannot be said for Alaska, where in the last 2 weeks or so there have been 4 maulings. There would have been five except for the quick action taken by an eleven year old boy. As four family members were making their way to a fishing hole, a brown bear ran out at them knocking two to the ground and attacking a third before he had a chance to take his rifle off from his shoulder.
The eleven year old boy was armed with a shotgun and three shots later the bear was dead. Anyone who is familiar with bears know a shotgun isn’t the best weapon in the world to use but the boy never hesitated or wavered and acted in defense of his family. Today, he is being hailed as a hero.
“His first shot was a light load of birdshot,” Lucas Clark said. “That first shot hit him in the shoulder and did absolutely nothing. The next shot hit him in the nose and traveled down through the neck.”
The Juneau Empire reports Elliot Clark then fired a third shot into the bear’s shoulder and back, causing the bear to fall to the ground.
“The bear was so close when Elliot hit it with his third shot, there were powder burns on the bear’s mouth,” the Juneau Empire said, citing a report from the Alaska State Troopers and Lucas Clark.
“As the bear slid past him and came to a stop, [Elliot] put a kill shot it him,” Lucas Clark said.
Bear attacks such as the one Elliot Clark saved his family from are relatively common in Alaska compared to the rest of the nation. Over the past two weeks, there have been four reported maulings in Alaska, according to a report by ABC News, which also reported a black bear broke into an 11-year-old boy’s Anchorage, Alaska, bedroom on Monday by smashing through the boy’s window. The black bear ran off without causing any harm to the boy or other members of the household.
