The Pit and the Claw: A Tacoma Man’s Terrifying Tale of Surviving a Bear Attack

Larsen's Frightful Experience.

Tacoma News Tells Thrilling Story Concerning a Washington County Man.

It is wonderful if more victims of accidents were as brave as Larsen of Schomaker, Wash., now on his way to Seattle, who is to undergo surgical treatment for a frightfully mangled arm. The Tacoma News thus tells the thrilling story:

Larsen's narrative of the incident, including the wounding by the bear, is thrilling in its awful agony recounted: the man, his wife and son all under the suffering he was put at the Grand Central hotel and said:

"I have been camping on a quarter section of land lying about eight miles back of Schomaker. We have been living with my family for the last six years, improving the place, about one week ago I had some timber being in the lower part of my farm somewhere off of my acre killed by two hunters and went up tonight for bears, but I will not confess that I am dead -- fell, placing it down in a small pit near the ground. On September 28, setting the trap, I found an enormous brown bear in it, the largest I have ever seen during a lifetime spent in the woods. The leg of the trap had fallen on its breast and bruised its back. The animal was alive, heavy, and full of hate. I put two bullets from my Winchester into his head and the bear turned over dead.

"I then climbed down into the pit to see the best means to skin or remove the animal. In doing this it was necessary for me to thrust my right arm under the bear's neck. No sooner had my hand reached its head than, with a speed that could not be avoided, the animal and seized me by the right arm, just above the elbow, sinking those deep teeth into the bone. At the same time he sent his claws into the log of my right boot. Fortunately I had brought my Winchester to the pit and had leaned it against the side of it. It happened, within reach of my left hand. The bear had me securely pinned, and I could feel his tusks crunching on the bone of my arm. What that agony was you can only imagine. I cannot describe it. Getting the rifle between my knees, I managed to work the loading lever with my left hand, and, placing the muzzle fairly to the bear's right eye, fired. The shark sent the big brute into its dying throes. Like a mad dog he still clung down on my already cut arm, until it seemed that his jaw must crush my bone, and I cried at the top of my head and strength to tear the arm away.

"However, enduring courage could not stand under such another assault into the pit by the same tactics as before. I rammed the barrel of the gun against this, where a spot showed between my shirt sleeve and the bear's throat. Larsen bore no show with the mark of the first barrel upon it), 'and, above the point, drove down the brute's throat as far as falling strength would allow of, fired.

"The bear was undoubtedly almost dead, but only a slight rattle all in his jaws fell. I could not free my arm. With this advantage gained I dropped to my knees, and, using the muzzle as a pry, forced the animal's jaw open. God only knows the sweet agony I endured during that prying operation, but at last I managed to free myself, with my right arm, and I fainted away. The next I knew, my wife and a neighboring rancher helped me in the pit, endeavoring to stem the bleeding from my arm. My wife hurried to town alarmed at my lone absence, and, knowing my errand when I left in the morning, had made her way to the bear deadfall. Unable, on account of her feeble strength to raise me from the pit, she had walked three miles in the next cabin adjoining ours to procure the neighbor's assistance.

"I was taken Fairhaven, and then to Victoria. Everything has been done that the famous 'doctors' of the Northwest are capable of, and that is probably all that medical science can attain, for I have had good doctors. The fractured bone of my arm still will not knit or grow again. It cannot do work out in any small job. Every time one of those transient forms of bone comes to the skin it festered an ulcer of sore in its recovery. The result is my arm, like a bear's tusks, I can't use it. The pain turned from it constantly. I had failed to understand an amputation when a friend told me of a surgeon in San Francisco who had performed several difficult operations by cutting and piecing out of the fractured bone matter, and I am going to him as a last hope. If he cannot help me the arm must come off, for I cannot stand such awful, constant pain much longer."

A News reporter secured one of the teeth that was sunk into Larsen's skin at the vicious struggle. It is not hard to imagine what the poor man endured while in his life-and-death grapple with the beast.