Meet Erin, a 33 yr. Canadian woman who was attacked by a Polar Bear 2 years ago. We met in Hawaii which is about as far as you can get from Churchill, Manitoba Canada , Polar Bear Capital of the World.
In October and November the Polar Bears are waiting for the Hudson Bay to freeze so they can hunt seals from the ice. This is the best time to see them in the wild and there is a whole tourist market regarding these massive animals at the top of the food chain. Polar Bears are known to hunt people, so the residents take precautions.
Erin was attacked by a Polar Bear and remembers the bear slamming her into a wall and biting her head and arms. She still has tooth and claw scars, and lived to tell about the experience.
Churchill is a small town, less than 1,000 people so it is not unusual for wildlife to wander in town.
At 5:30 am, Erin decided to leave a friends house and go back to her own home. There had been a Halloween party and she needed to sleep before she went to work later that day. Two friends insisted on walking the one block to her home with her, even though she had her bear bangs in one pocket and bear spray in another.
(Bear bangs are loud noisemakers used to scare off bears, if one happens to meet a bear. I imagine before walking out the door, one double-checks for their hat, gloves, boots, scarf, wallet, keys, phone, bear bangs and bear spray).
The group was nearing her home when one of her friends turned his head and saw a Polar Bear headed towards them and screamed “Run!”. The other friend fell while scrambling to get away and the bear lunged passed to grab the prey he targeted.
It was Erin.
Erin half-turned and saw the polar bear, his eyes focused on her. In three strides, before her feet could take action, the Polar Bear attacked and was on top of her. She tried to fight it, punching it in the head. It closed its mouth around her, picked her up and shook her like a rag doll. She felt her scalp ripped from her skull.
Erin was aware the whole time although she was not in pain.
Erin and her friends were shouting. People were getting ready for work and heard the noise. Bill Ayotte, preparing for work, looked out the window, saw a person being attacked, opened his door and ran through it, grabbing the closest weapon, a snow shovel. He clubbed the bear on the head. The bear dropped Erin from his mouth, 4 feet off the ground and grabbed her savior.
Erin spotted the open door and ran into the stranger’s house. With one hand she was holding her scalp onto her head and bleeding profusely all over his home. The other hand was dialing 911 and shouting that she “couldn’t stay calm, a man was being attacked by a Polar Bear and to send an ambulance immediately.”
While Erin was shouting at the emergency operator, the water in the upstairs shower stopped, and a woman wrapped in a towel appeared at the top of the stairs.
“What the Fuck is going on?!” yelled the woman. Erin was bleeding profusely on the carpet and blood was on the house phone.
Blood was everywhere. Gunshots added to the confusion.
Erin responded in a daze that she was attacked by a Polar Bear.
The woman led Erin into the bathroom and told her to take her hand off her head so she could see how bad it was. Erin said “No, I have to hold my head on. ” The woman identified herself as a nurse, and told her it was going to be ok, calming Erin so she could see how bad it was. Erin removed her hand from her head, her scalp peeled nearly off, and blood spurted everywhere. The nurse whipped off the towel wrapped around her body and wrapped it around Erin’s head to slow the streaming blood.
What a morning!
Erin is a yoga practitioner and instructor. She says that had her spine and rest of body not been so flexible, this attack probably would have killed her.
The bear did not give up easily. Another neighbor fired cracker shells and jumped in his car, honking and flashing headlights driving to 5 feet from the bear before it got off of Bill and ran away.
Erin recovered and her savior, Bill Ayotte recently accepted the Star of Courage award, the 2nd highest award in Canada. To see more, clickhttp://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2486977/Polar-bear-attack-Hero-neighbors-save-man-woman-Churchill-Manitoba.html
Have you ever been so scared or worried that you blurt things out?
After Erin was taken to the local hospital and stabilized, she needed to be transported to a larger city with more resources to treat her. She had lost a lot of blood, and the doctors were unsure if she was going to survive. The hospital insisted in calling her mother. The hospital staff told her that her daughter had been attacked by a polar bear, and she was stable… for now.
The mom wanted to speak to Erin.
The first words out of Mom’s mouth were ” I hope you are happy. You moved from Montreal to the Polar Bear capital of the world, and now you got attacked by a Polar Bear. What did you think was going to happen? I hope you are happy.”
What struck me about Erin, was the strength she has in adversity. She researched PTSD and how to avoid it after a traumatic event. One way is to talk about it. She signed up for counseling and talked about the experience a lot- she was invited on talk shows. Once she discovered that the Canadian health care system did not cover emergency transportation from one province to another and received a $12k bill, she was invited on the talk show circuit again / She spoke of the loophole in the health coverage and to get travel insurance when leaving the province.
As shocking as this story is, I found even more surprising the negative feedback she got. One woman even said that she would never hire someone someone so irresponsible.
Whaaaaaatt?
Erin’s philosophy is of forgiveness. She believes even though that person had never met her, it may have been the only way that mother could look at her own children and not fear for their lives walking home from school. After all, if someone “asks for it”, then the mother could rest assured that her children were not going to become the next meal for a Polar Bear.
Midlife Crisis 