A 12-year-old boy in Wisconsin rose to the occasion when a 200-pound black bear attacked his father.
The boy, Owen Beierman, and his father, Ryan, were enjoying time together at their cabin in Siren when the terrifying incident happened, KARE 11 reported on Wednesday.
Owen was apparently the first to see the bear. He shot at it but missed, causing the animal to flee into the woods. When the pair searched for it, a neighbor’s dog eventually led them to an overgrown area. To their surprise, the bear was about ten feet away from Ryan.
It attacked him, and he tried to get it off of him by hitting the animal in the head with his pistol. Moments later, the bear lunged at his face.
Owen knew he had to do something to save his father’s life.
“I saw him (the bear) knock him to the ground, and I just saw the black outline and shot over the dog’s back and hit the bear. I just felt like, shoot the bear and save my dad; it’s all I really remember,” the boy recalled.
Ryan suffered wounds on his face, one arm, and his leg and was taken to a hospital for care.
Ryan wrote in a social media post on September 8:
Thank you to all the neighbors who helped me out tonight, in a time of need! Derek Jaskolka, Randy Thomas, Jeff Stager, Joel Schollmeier, Dillon Mattson, and anyone else who helped out! I am officially done bear hunting! Yeah I did get mauled by a bear tonight, and yes I survived!
When speaking of his brave son, Ryan said, “He performed under pressure that a lot of people wouldn’t perform under.”
The two are now trying to figure out how to mount the bear and where to place it.
A similar instance happened in May when a disabled U.S. Army combat veteran was attacked by a grizzly bear in Wyoming’s Grand Teton National Park and lived to tell the tale, Breitbart News reported.