‘This is it’: mauled US hiker recalls moment grizzly locked eyes with him

As the large roaring grizzly bear charged down at him from across a snow field in Montana and mauled him, hiker Daniel Crago had just enough time to put his arm up and think: “This is it.”

But two weeks after that perilous, exceedingly rare encounter in Glacier national park, Crago, 32, is still alive, recovering after three surgeries and feeling “extremely lucky”, he said on Monday in an interview with ABC News.

Crago was attacked by the bear off of the park’s Grinnell Glacier Trail on 28 May, during the last hike of a week-long trip he had taken with a friend.

He had split with his friend to take a few photos from a snow field, he told ABC News. And as he was walking back, he said he saw what he believed to be a grizzly bear cub.

Moments later, he looked up to see a larger grizzly about 15ft above him.

“This bear, as soon as we looked at each other, it charged towards me,” Crago said.

Crago, who described himself as an experienced hiker, attempted to follow the correct protocol when encountering a bear by calling out to alert it of his presence and avoid frightening it. But they were in an area “where the sound of loud rushing water made it difficult for either the man or the bear to detect one another”, the National Park Service (NPS) said. Crago said he also had bear spray on him, as is recommended by the NPS when visiting the park, but he didn’t have time to use it.

It took “a leap towards me,” Crago said. “You could hear the roar, and I just stuck my arm up out of self-defense.”

The bear bit Crago on his right forearm, breaking both bones. The creature then dragged Crago about 20ft before running away, he said.

Crago’s friend and other nearby hikers immediately came to his aid, including a doctor who fashioned a tourniquet on his arm to reduce blood loss, and he was airlifted to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Glacier national park, which stretches across 1,583 miles over the Rocky mountains, is home to nearly 1,000 black and grizzly bears, according to the NPS. Though bear attacks are generally rare – the chances of being injured by a bear are approximately 1 in 2.1 million – Glacier is considered a hotspot for bear encounters.