Sprayed and Wash - Bear Spray

Am Shooting Journal ^ | 7/24/2019 | R Woodford

[w1n1]

People who had sprayed bears assured me it works, but I also learned things that changed the way I thought about it. Blowback is one aspect I never considered.
As a state wildlife biologist, Dave Battle has pepper-sprayed black bears dozens of times in hazing situations. A few years ago he found himself on the receiving end. Battle was called to deal with a problem bear, a young black bear, at a home in a wooded Anchorage neighborhood. It's a situation he's familiar with and he had a good idea how things would play out.
"I figured I'd spray it and it would run off into the woods," he said. "It climbed up a tree, and it was just about 3 feet off the ground. The wind felt calm. I sprayed it and it got down and started to run off, and there must have been a light breeze because the spray came back on me. For about 20 seconds I felt like I couldn't breathe, and I couldn't see. I couldn't open my eyes at all. I knew it would pass, so I just sat down."
He said it passed quickly and in a few minutes he could see again and breathe normally.

FIRST AID AND TREATMENT - At Bartlett Regional Hospital in Juneau, AK, they keep milk and oil on hand. Emergency Department Director Kimberley McDowell wrote, "We use cooking oil and milk for exterior surfaces, for eye exposures we irrigate with copious amounts of normal saline … The last exposure I took care of I used milk and it worked great, but again milk is not the course of treatment for eye exposure."
The spray is oily, and cool water is not very effective in removing oil. Dish soap works, but at Bartlett they’ve found it helps to add oil first.

GETTING SPRAYED - Chad Rice works for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game and oversees operations at the bear viewing area at Pack Creek south of Juneau.
The U.S. Forest Service also shares management of the area. Rice received training in the use of bear spray as part of broader law enforcement training, and said he was in the last class where volunteers could opt to get sprayed as part of the training. The reason was to show participants that if you remain calm and breathe, you can still function so as not to be fully incapacitated.

We don't do this anymore. For me, it made the prospect of experiencing blow back or residual spray less worrisome. After the class I knew that it would be uncomfortable but manageable.
"… I learned to concentrate on breathing and force yourself to open your eyes. Do not rub your eyes as much as you will want to, it will only make it worse.
While it was “horribly unpleasant,” it was a valuable experience, he said. It provided some insight into what could happen in a real self-defense situation.

"If you need to use bear spray, there is a high chance you will get some on you," he said. "The odds are good you will be affected directly or indirectly, and you may still need to function. In the best case scenario the bear runs away, but it might not – it could be really distracted by the spray, but it's still there, and you might need to make an exit. And even if your eyes are barely working, your arms and legs will still work."

HOW TO USE SPRAY - Most brands of bear spray note that they will spray continuously for seven or eight seconds (some brands say about five seconds), but short blasts are recommended. The cloud appears to spray out 15 or 20 feet, but that cloud is still pretty potent even when it’s not visible. Schneider recommends a blast of two seconds or less, getting a cloud of spray between you and the bear.
If you get the bear in the face, don't keep spraying; just leave. You want to get away from the bear and the spray in the air. (Don't run – walk away and keep an eye on the bear as you go.) He said during training, he'll demonstrate with cans of expired spray. He's careful about the wind direction and where students are located, but the spray can carry. Read the rest of bear pepper spray.

[kanawa]

Bump

[Vaquero]

Bear Spray

[minnesota_bound]

Bears like pepper with their meals......

[Captain Rhino]

I believe there have been reports of Antifa using bear spray against their opponents in Portland. Use of some sort of repellant spray was definitely documented in the video of their attack on the journalist a couple of weeks ago. Of course, use of repellant spray or Mace-like equivalents is now being/has been reported in some muggings, robberies, and other assaults.

[moovova]

“Blowback is one aspect I never considered.”

Really?

[petro45acp]

It’s a mantra the younguns have heard since issued pepper spray...

“...in your hand, where’s the wind...”

For social interaction, it does no good to have pepper spray in a purse or pocket. like the lottery, to win ya gotta play...

getting incapacitated by one’s own spray just sucks!

KYPD
IYHWTW

[pas]

Had it happen from someone else spray on a trail. They didn’t use it on the bear which walked off on it’s own. He sprayed it on accident when he tripped on a root. As someone with athsma that stuff sucks.

[null and void]

I suspect washing your face and eyelids with ‘no more tears’ baby shampoo and water would help flush the oily capsacin away.

Enough shampoo gets into the eyes to suspend and help flush away oily stuff.

I use it routinely to break up the waxy plugs in my meibomian glands (there’s your $10 word of the day) to fight dry eyes.

Perhaps someone with ER experience could chip in here?

[60Gunner]

Emergency treatment for capsacin in the eyes is continuous (and by "continuous" I mean, "without interruption") irrigation of the eyes with warm water for fifteen (and by "fifteen" I mean "fifteen uninterrupted") minutes.

After what the patient will certainly describe as a most enjoyable (that is, really crappy) fifteen minutes, we reassess for any damage to the eyes. If severe damage is determined, it becomes an ophthalmological emergency and the eyeball gurus will step into the sandbox.

Cool compresses over the eyes may also be applied for relief of external irritation.

It goes without saying that it would be prudent to avoid spraying the stuff upwind or doing anything stupid enough to warrant getting sprayed with the stuff by someone else.

"An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure and a thousand dollar ER bill." -Ben Franklin

[SauronOfMordor]

Bottom line: emptying a mag of .45 into the bear is likely more effective and less risk to the human.

[null and void]

Thanks!

[60Gunner]

Bottom line: emptying a mag of .45 into the bear is likely more effective and less risk to the human.Staying wayyyyyyy the hell out of the woods is probably going to be my first choice.

[SauronOfMordor]

Bears sometimes come out of the woods and into suburban back yards.

It used to be that such critters had a fear of humans and stayed well away, back when we would shoot such on sight. Now, they’re losing that fear.