An Alaska man out hunting in the wilderness with his father accidentally shot himself in the leg while attempting to ward of a bear attack, capturing the ordeal on camera and sharing a video of the aftermath.
Tyler Johnson was hiking just south of Anchorage when he and his dad ran into a brown bear. Undeterred by their attempts to startle the bear away, the animal charged directly toward Johnson.
The 32-year-old then fell, but managed to pull out a pistol and fire several rounds at the bear. At least one of the bullets struck Johnson in the leg.
Johnson later filmed himself describing the encounter while he and his father waited for the Alaska Department of Public Safety to respond to their SOS. The motionless body of the bear can be seen a few feet away.
Speaking calmly into the camera, Johnson recalls the bear charging toward them.
“Thankfully, when I was falling backwards, I was able to unsheathe my pistol and absolutely unload,” Johnson said in the video shared by Fox 35 Orlando.
“I did shoot myself in the leg when I was falling backwards,” he says, panning the camera down to his leg, wrapped in bloody gauze. “But it went straight through my leg.”
Johnson was unsure whether an additional wound was from shooting himself or a bear bite. “He did bite into me, I think I felt that,” he said.
According to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, male brown bears in the late summer and fall usually weigh between 500 and 900 pounds, but can weigh as much as 1,400.
First aid was administered in the field before Johnson was airlifted to a nearby hospital for treatment.
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