Woman says she played dead in Alaska bear attack

Yahoo/AP ^ | 5-29-14 | By RACHEL D'ORO

[kingattax]

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Jessica Gamboa grew up hearing you should play dead during a bear attack, and she put that knowledge to the ultimate test when she ran into a brown bear on the grounds of a military base in Alaska.

The bear knocked Gamboa down, then picked her up and threw her to the ground. The bear went on to pummel Gamboa several times more with her powerful paws.

Throughout the May 18 attack, Gamboa lay in a fetal position and remained silent.

That action likely saved her life.

"I actually can't even believe this actually really happened," the 25-year-old woman said in a videotaped interview released by the Army on Thursday. "It seems still surreal, just for the fact that I'm still alive — seems unreal. "

[riverrunner]

The only reason to play dead is that one is not armed.

Playing dead have been pushed by the anti hunting, anti self defense, anti firearms types.

Playing dead have only been push in the last 50 years or so before that one was expected to be armed and defend one self.

[ken5050]

Not in any way to make light of the woman’s incredible bravery, but there is a very old joke, which involves a man visiting a house of ill repute, and after concluding his business, as he is leaving, he’s confronted by the madam, who screams at him that he’s just had sex with a woman who just died, and how could he possibly do such a thing, to which he replies: “Dead?? I thought she was Irish Catholic.”

[gundog]

Jack O’Conner relates the mauling of one of his guides in Alaska. A guy named Field Johnson, if memory serves. I imagine he had his 30-30 with him, but he got jumped. He played dead, and almost was, for awhile but figured the bear had left. It hadn’t, and it really put the hurt on him, buried him, and left. He went insane not long after.

[riverrunner]

Remember the story.

[Starstruck]

Jessica Gamboa grew up hearing you should play dead during a bear attack

And I would have crapped my drawers for additional authenticity.

[Flag_This]

I thought I read a statistic somewhere that claimed the majority of encounters with grizzlies were like this story - surprised mother with cubs - in such cases the mother bear is just trying to protect her cubs, so playing dead might work. But black bear attacks have tended to be situations where the black bear is actually hunting, in which case playing dead makes things really easy for them.