American Who Survived a Bear Attack Told His Story on Video

Todd Orr, a 50-year-old American who survived a bear attack, published a one-minute video that he recorded soon after the incident. He says that the attack happened on October 1, when he was out on a morning hike in the Madison valley, to the east of Ennis city in Montana.

“Knowing that bears are common throughout southwest Montana, I hollered out “hey bear” about every 30 seconds so as to not surprise any bears along the trail,” Orr says. After some time, he came to a meadow, and saw a sow bear with cubs on the other end of it. She immediately spotted him and started quickly moving in his direction.

“I gave her a full charge of bear spray at about 25 feet. Her momentum carried her right through the orange mist and on me. I went to my face in the dirt and wrapped my arms around the back of my neck for protection. She was on top of me biting my arms, shoulders and backpack. She would stop for a few seconds and then bite again. Over and over. After a couple minutes, but what seemed an eternity, she disappeared.”

After a while, a bloodied man got up and headed to his car, which was three miles away. “I knew I would survive and thanked god for getting me through this,” Orr recalls. In five or ten minutes he heard a sound: he turned and saw the bear again. She brought him to the ground and started biting him again. Orr’s arm went numb, he couldn’t move, and blood was gushing into his eyes. “I thought this was the end.”

At some point, the bear stopped and just stood over Orr. “I will never forget that brief moment. I could feel and her breath on the back of my neck, just inches away. I could feel her front claws digging into my lower back below my backpack where she stood. I could smell the terrible pungent odor she emitted. I didn’t move. And then she was gone.”

Orr discovered he was still able to move, so he resumed his walk to the car. On the way, he recorded a video account of the attack, which already has over 30 million views.