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The grizzly wrapped her jaws around his head and picked him up with her mouth. His scalp ripped and he fell to the ground, so she picked him up again by the thigh and right buttock, he said.

Carbery said the bear picked him up and dropped him a few more times before he found himself lying on his side. He had just gone through defensive training as a park ranger, which taught him to keep his feet between himself and his attacker and try to kick them away.

He started kicking the bear in the face as hard as he could, he said, before he managed to push himself up and try to swing at her with his fist.

“She moved like a prize fighter boxer. She ducked her head to the side and I missed,” he said.

“I tried to hit her again and she moved the other way, a quick sudden move — that was the thing that gave me a little bit of space.”

That bit of distance allowed him to run back into the house. He had a torn scalp, a chest laceration, deep puncture wounds in his buttocks and leg and a wide gash across his abdomen, and he bled profusely as he scrambled to find his car keys.

Carbery had dropped his phone in the melee and, regardless, has no cell service at the home he rents in Bella Coola. He also has no landline, and had no choice but to drive himself to the hospital.

The bear charged at him one last time as he staggered to his vehicle, but Carbery made it behind the wheel and spent the 10-minute drive trying to stop himself from passing out.

It was so early in the morning that he said he had to buzz the front door of the hospital several times before a nurse appeared — stunned at the sight of the man with blood gushing from his head and abdomen.