A HUNTER who was mauled by a bear has revealed how his son saved his life – by shooting the beast dead and turning it into kebab meat.
The pair had been hunting in a forest in Sweden when a bear hurtled towards Pär Sundström, 42, knocking him to the ground and gnawing on his face.
A Swedish father has had to have his face reconstructed after he was mauled by a bear
Pär credits his 14-year-old son with saving his life – he escaped with a handful of wounds
The pair enacted the “ultimate revenge” – by eating the beast that attacked it
Pär said that the shots he fired through the bear’s body did nothing to stop the attack, and it was only when his son Evert, 14, karate chopped the enraged animal’s head.
“I got so terribly angry and thought I had to do something,” Evert told Swedish media after the incident.
“I practice karate and I ran forward and hit the bear’s head as hard as I could with my clenched hand. Then I don’t remember anymore.”
Pär compared the ensuing scene to a wrestling match.
He revealed how the bear had turned it’s attention to the teenager – sinking it’s sharp incisors into Evert’s arm and using brute force to throw him around.
Yet, Pär’s resilient son continued to hit the bear over the head with his other arm.
The brutal scene sent shock waves through the wounded father, who was subsequently able to regain control over himself and pick up his rifle.
“I needed to wait for the right sight to shoot, so that Evert wouldn’t be behind the bear and risk being hit,” Pär said.
It was only after Pär tried to take aim that he realised how injured he was.
“It splattered like hell, there was blood everywhere,” he recalled.
The recoil from the shots hit Pär directly in a gaping hole under his right eye, but the shots were effective this time and Evert was able to shake the bear.
The father-son duo were left scrambling to pick up parts of Pär’s face from the forest floor, before Evert called emergency services.
Pär says he is incredibly grateful to have such a wise son, crediting his decision to have him airlifted to hospital for saving his life.
“I’m happy about that today, that I have a very wise son,” he said.
“I think Evert is a hero because I think he saved my life right then and there, simply because he reacted as quickly as he did and tackled the bear.”
Pär was rushed into a 13-hour surgery where doctors were able to reconstruct part of his face by using skin from his thigh.
The pair revealed how they then got the “ultimate revenge”, with Pär describing how they used the bear’s body for kebab meat.
He said: “Stuffing a taco with the meat of a bear that bit me in the face was truly the ultimate revenge in my eyes.
“The meat is dark, coarse, sweet and requires lots of spices. This bear lived mainly on grasses and herbs; the meat is good to eat.”
“If a bear has eaten carrion, it’s not possible to eat. Then the meat smells like surströmming (fermented herring).”
Having frozen the leftovers from their feast, Pär said his family has enough kebab and taco meat to last them months.
This isn’t the first time that a man has wrestled a bear and lived to tell the tale.
Andreas Kieling, 63, told German media how he had been able to escape after protecting his neck when a bear lunged at him.
He added that his top tricks for surviving included not fainting from the agony, and trying not to scream.
“When bears fight among themselves, they quickly react. When one submits, the other quickly lets go of him. That was my luck.”
While an American woman revealed how she was able to escape a savage black bear mauling by using a quilt.
Laurel-Rose von Hoffmann-Curzi, 67, said: “There was a quilt hanging on [a nearby] railing and I threw it over his head.
“It was the only thing that was there and the only thing, in that moment, I could think to do.
“It must have startled him as he turned around and went back down the stairs.”
Leave a comment
