College Wrestlers Meet Their Match In Horrifying Attack By Grizzly Bear
Two college wrestlers from a small Wyoming school endured gruesome injuries while while fighting off a grizzly bear mauling over the weekend.
Kendell Cummings and Brady Lowry, teammates at Northwest College in Cody, were antler hunting with a group of teammates in the Wyoming woods when the massive bear attacked.
Toward the end of the trip, the two men split from the rest of the group in one last effort to find a prize. That was when Lowry began to notice indistinguishable signs they were not alone.
"I saw bear [droppings] all over, and I looked at Kenny and said, 'There is a grizzly bear here," Lowry told KSL-TV. "And right after I said that the bear came out of the willows. It was thick. It came at me and charged me and tackled me off this cliff into this gulley and was going at me for a little bit."
Lowry says the bear broke his arm first and continued to attack as he attempted to curl into a ball for protection. That's when Cummings jumped in, screaming, kicking, and hitting the bear in a desperate attempt to save his friend.
The deadly predator, which can weigh up to 600 pounds, turned its attention to Cummings, who had grabbed the bear's hair and tried to pulled it back, according to his account.
"It tackled me, chewed me up a bit, and then when it was done, it wandered off, and I started calling out for Brady to make sure he was alright," Cummings told KSL-TV of his encounter with the bear.
Cummings says the bear only disappeared briefly, stalking the man as he called for his teammate.
"I heard the bear kind of grunting behind me, and I heard it walking," Cummings said in an interview with ABC News. "Then I saw it again, and it came and attacked me again."
After the bear left, the two men reunited with the rest of their teammates and were promptly transported to Billings (Montana) Clinic Hospital in Billings, where Cummings underwent surgery.
Both men are expected to make full recoveries. They credited their survival to the deep bond they have formed during their time as teammates.
"I'm just glad we have each other still; glad all four of us walk off that mountain," Lowry told KSL-TV while sitting next to Cummings in his hospital room. "I don't think anyone else lesser than a wrestling team with a bond like we have – they wouldn't have handled it as well as we did."
Although attacks on humans are rare, bears are typically feasting on all available food sources this time of year to store up for a long winter hibernation.
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