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An Alaskan deer hunter was mauled and bitten on the head by a brown bear Sunday during a blacktail hunt on Admiralty Island. Amanda Compton, 44, walked away from the attack with a small piece of the bear\u2019s tooth embedded in her skull.<\/p>\n
Compton, who could not be reached for comment Friday, told the Anchorage Daily News<\/a><\/em> that she and her hunting partner Nicholas Orr were hunting blacktail deer on the island, which lies 15 miles to the south of Juneau. Less than two hours into their hunt, around 11 a.m., they were walking through a boggy area with dense brush when a brown bear sow sow emerged from the bushes and charged Compton, who was in the lead.<\/p>\n Orr told ADN that the bear was on Compton in seconds. He said the experience was \u201clike stepping on a landmine.\u201d Neither hunter was able to grab their rifle, and Compton had just enough time to curl up into the fetal position and brace for impact.<\/p>\n Read Next:<\/strong> An Expert\u2019s Guide on How to Stay Alive in Grizzly Bear Country<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cI probably had two seconds to determine that the bushes were moving and something was coming at me, that it was a bear, and then to seek as much shelter as I could,\u201d Compton told the news outlet. \u201cWhich was getting down in a ball and putting my hands and arms over my head and face.\u201d<\/p>\n The attack was swift but brief, the hunters explained. The sow bit down on Compton\u2019s head right away, then quickly let her go and ran off. When the bear turned back around from 15 yards away, Orr shot at it with his rifle and scared it off. He then noticed a cub in a nearby tree.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Compton said that although the pair had an inReach device<\/a> with them, they decided not to use it. She was wearing a beanie at the time, so she couldn\u2019t see the extent of the damage to her head, and she was still able to walk. So, they hiked back to their boat and ran back to Juneau, where she was treated at Bartlett Regional Hospital. Compton had a 6-inch laceration down the top of her skull and a 4-inch gash in the back of her head, along with a puncture wound on her left hand from where the bear had bitten down.\u00a0<\/p>\n While stapling and stitching her wounds, doctors also found a 2-millimeter piece of bear tooth embedded in Compton\u2019s skull, which she kept, according to ADN. She said she was amazed that the sow didn\u2019t inflict more harm.<\/p>\n \u201cIt ripped me enough to say \u2018I can do damage,\u2019 but it didn\u2019t cross the line into breaking a bone or anything,\u201d Compton said. \u201cIt\u2019s so rare to have a bear bite your head and be able to walk out of it and do math problems.\u201d<\/p>\n A wildlife biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game visited Compton in the hospital to hear her story, and he chalked it up to a \u201csurprise encounter.\u201d He said that because the bear was defending its cub, ADFG would not try to locate it or take any other management action. The biologist also told ADN that Compton \u201cdid exactly what we\u2019d tell somebody to do\u201d in that situation.\u00a0<\/p>\n Read Next:<\/strong> Attacked on the Nushagak: When a Moose Hunter Gets Pinned by a Brown Bear, It\u2019s Up to His Hunting Partner to Save His Life<\/a><\/p>\n \u201cIf [a bear] feels threatened, the best thing you can do is act non-threateningly: get on the ground, cover yourself up,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n As for Compton, she said the attack wouldn\u2019t keep her from hunting on the island in the future. She said she\u2019s had other brown bear encounters there before, which isn\u2019t surprising. Admiralty Island is home to the highest concentration of brown bears in North America. There are an estimated 1,600 bears on the island, according to ADFG<\/a>, which is higher than the human population and equals roughly one brown bear per square mile.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n