An Arizona mom was counting her blessings Monday after her teenage son escaped from a black bear that barged into their family cabin with only some nasty scratches across his face and arm.
"This really could have been a lot worse," Carol Edington Hawkins told NBC News. "We're still in disbelief that this happened, but we're also feeling very blessed."
Hawkins said her 15-year-old son, Brigham, was "just chilling" Thursday evening in one of two cabins her parents have on their property in Alpine when the bear "walked in through the front door and swiped him across the head."
"The front door was open to let the cool night air in," Hawkins said. "Brigham was watching YouTube and didn't realize what was happening."
But the minute the bear struck, Brigham "started screaming," she said. "Got him on the nose and the cheek and then went ahead and got his forehead and the top of his head.”
His 18-year-old brother, Parker, heard the screams and ran over from the other cabin, their mother said.
"Parker at first thought it was a big dog of some kind," Hawkins said. "Then the bear saw Parker and began to chase him. That gave Brigham time to slam the door shut in his cabin."
Parker, Hawkins said, made it back to the other cabin with the bear breathing down his neck.
"He was just pacing there for a while as we watched him through the window," Hawkins said of the bear. "Then he sat down on a couch on the porch and just looked around. It was insane."
Hawkins said that while she called 911 and a neighbor for help, her husband, Shane, waited for the bear to look away and then darted to the cabin where Brigham was holed up.
"He slammed the door in the bear's face," she said.
By the time agents from the Arizona Game and Fish Department arrived, the bear was no longer besieging the cabins.
"After arriving on scene, AZGFD wildlife officers were able to quickly locate and dispatch the bear," the agency said in a statement.
The bear was a male estimated to be about 3 years old and his carcass will be tested for diseases.
Hawkins said her son is “doing better” and has already received a round of rabies shots as a precaution. She said she doesn't know why the bear attacked.
"He may have just been hungry," she said. "But that's just not a normal way for a bear to behave."
Had Parker not intervened, Brigham could have died, Hawkins said.
"He has neurological disorder and would not have been able to get away from the bear," she said. "It took a few miracles happening at the same time to save him."
Of the 16 bear attacks on people in Arizona since 1990, two have been fatal, according to the Game and Fish Department. The most recent fatality occurred last year in Prescott, where a 66-year-old man drinking a morning cup of coffee in a wooded area where he was building a cabin was attacked by a black bear.
Earlier this month, on May 19, a hiker exploring the backcountry of Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming was attacked by a grizzly bear. The 35-year-old Massachusetts man also survived.
It's not yet summer and two bear attacks have already been reported.
In both cases the humans emerged from their man-versus-beast confrontations bloody but still alive. The same could not be said for one of the bears.
Most recently, a 15-year-old Arizona teenager was sitting inside his family's cabin Thursday in the town of Alpine when a black bear barged inside through an open door and swiped him across the face, the Arizona Game and Fish Department reported.
"It then left the cabin and approached other family members before entering the cabin a second time and swiping at the victim’s arm," the agency said in a statement.
The boy's family was able to scare the bear and wildlife officers from AZGFD arrived a short time later and "were able to quickly locate and dispatch the bear."
"The bear was a male black bear estimated to be about 3 years old," according to the agency. "The carcass will be examined and tested for disease by the department’s wildlife health specialists."
Meanwhile, the boy's family was counting its blessings.
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