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Today’s episode takes us to the scenic and beautiful Glacier National Park in northwest
Montana, USA.
People who visit Glacier frequently return as it is one of the most well preserved wild
locations in the world.
The entire ecosystem operates nearly exactly the way it did before modernity.
There are towering granite peaks and mountain trails that gain thousands of feet in elevation
to hike.
Located just a few miles south of the Canadian border, the climate there is very cold and
snowy in the winter and warm and sunny in the summer.
The wildlife abounds with moose, deer, elk, wolves, grizzly and black bears as well as
more species of smaller animals you would care to count.
The trail system is arguably the best way to see the park up close and personal, but
not only people use the park trail system.
On August 26th, 2005, Johan Otter, an emigrant from Holland, and his daughter Jenna, were
planning on celebrating Jenna’s high school graduation with a trip to Glacier National
Park to hike and spend time together.
It was kind of a farewell camping trip between daughter and father as Jenna was getting ready
to leave for college and become an independent adult.
They had loaded up their car and driven up from Escondido, California and are very excited
to spend time in the wild together.
The Grinnell Glacier Trailhead starts out from the Many Glacier Picnic Area near Swiftcurrent
Lake down in the bottom of the valley.
The trail works its way along Josephine Lake and climbs in elevation the entire way.
Next is Grinnell Lake and finally Upper Grinnell Lake with Grinnell Glacier.
The Parks Service says that trails are open for hiking during business hours, from 9 to
5, but Johan wanted to be the first up the trail so they left a little earlier, around
7:30 AM.
They were packed and prepared with a can of bear spray.
The duo climbed the trail and basked in the fresh air and amazing views for just over
four miles.
From this vantage point they could see down the valley as the lakes line out to the north
with a 400 foot elevated perspective.
Just ahead of the overlook the trail bends back around and climbs across another cliff
face.
As they hiked along they talked and sang songs for fun and so that any animal they encountered
wouldn’t be surprised.
As they rounded a huge boulder in the bend in the trail, Jenna was leading and suddenly
stopped with her hands out as if to say “stop”.
She had a terrified expression on her face.
She stated that she was about 5 feet from the bear and it had nearly a human expression
of surprise.
Jenna stepped back a few steps and fell, hitting her head and blacking out.
As Johan stepped around her to take a look himself, he could see the worst possible scenario
unfolding before his very eyes.
The narrow trail is completely obstructed by a 400 pound sow grizzly with two small
cubs.
The mother bear's rage was concentrated on Johan before he could even react.
All he focused on was huge teeth and curved claws powering toward him.
The grizzly latches on to Johan’s right thigh twice in less than a second.
Johan recognizes the desperation of this situation and believing Jenna had run further down the
trail, decides to jump off of the cliff to his right into some bushes about 25 feet below.
The impact disorienting him momentarily.
In the process of the attack on her father, Jenna had come to her senses and grabbed the
bear spray which had fallen out of her dad’s side pouch of his pack.
In the confusion and pressure of the situation, Jenna could not figure out how to remove the
safety guard to use the bear spray.
She could hear Johan below yelling at her to jump off of the cliff but looked up to
see the sow now advancing toward her.
Jenna drops the bear spray and throws herself off the cliff and loses her senses as she
freefalls.
Bouncing off of rocks and sliding down the cliff face she loses her shoe and is severely
injured.
She had missed the ledge that her father landed on and fell about 50 feet landing on her butt.
The bear briefly peers over the cliff toward Johan and immediately runs to a rock shelf
that leads her directly to him.
This happened so fast that he had no options to react.
Johan then drops into a ball in an attempt to protect his head and neck just before the
bear pounces on top of him.
He screamed in pain as the enraged grizzly sank her teeth into his flesh.
She clamped her jaws on his back pack and slammed him into the ground over and over.
He realizes he needs to keep the bear's attention focused on him and pulls the bear off of the
cliff about 30 feet in a second fall.
As he lands he feels the impact and stares into the hazel brown eyes bent on his destruction.
The bear claws his head and arm and bites his skull trying to take out the threat to
her cubs.
He then feels her hugs canines puncture his scalp at the top and bottom of the back of
his head and hears his skull crack and tissues tearing.
Then she fixes her jaws at the top of his neck cracking and popping his neck bones.
He rips himself loose once again and hurls himself over another cliff and looks up to
see the bear looking at him from above.
As the bear disappears from his view, he hears Jenna scream above him.
While the bear is mauling her father, Jenna seeks a hiding place in a nearby bush and
curls up to give herself cover.
After her father jumps off of the cliff the bear slowly ambles over to Jenna huffing and
puffing its disdain.
Jenna places her hand on each side of the bear's head, and the sow grips Jenna’s head
in her mouth and rag dolls her.
It then bites her shoulder and tosses her back and forth.
At that point, Jenna decides to lay back and play dead.
The bear pauses her attack on Jenna and looks around to check on her cubs, then slowly ables
off in their direction.
Jenna laid still for what seemed like a long time before hearing Johan yelling her name.
She responds and the father and daughter reconnect in a reassuring affirmation of survival.
Johan feels tissue hanging down over his face and proceeds to check his most important senses.
He feels his right eye and can still see out of it.
He reaches his hand up to the top of his head and feels his skull without its scalp.
He looks at his right arm and can see a large hole and watches his muscles move through
it.
He improvises a medical dressing for his head from his jacket.
He slowly starts to climb up the ledge toward Jenna but is too traumatized to safely do
it.
Jenna tried to regain her feet, but unbeknownst to her, she had broken her back in two places
in the fall.
She felt around her head and slipped her fingers into a gaping wound at the base of her skull.
She began moaning for help.
Exhaustion and shock began to set in on Jenna and her father.
Nearby hikers heard the cries for help and quickly approached each of them.
Jim & Kathy Knapp were on their honeymoon when they heard the Otter’s pleas.
The intensity of the cries belied the desperation of Jenna and her father.
Jim and Kathy then decided that she should run back down the trail to find help.
Jim scrambles down the cliff face using bushes and weeds as handholds.
He emerges just a few yards from Jenna and explains to her that help is on the way.
She asks him to find her father to make sure he is ok.
Jim takes his jacket and covers her before searching for Johan.
Jim repeats his dangerous scramble to get near Johan and sees blood smeared all over
the boulders near him.
Johan’s injuries were gruesome to look at and Jim was extremely concerned for his condition.
Jim inventoried Johans injuries and bandages him as best he could do given the situation.
Johan requested that Jim keep an eye out for his camera.
Jim then scrambles back up to Jenna and pours some water in her mouth, but it dribbles out
of her cheek which was torn open in the attack.
Concerned and helpful hikers began dropping clothes and food over the edge to the trapped
victims.
The response for the injured Otter’s was overwhelming and heartfelt.
Two hikers approached Jenna and Johan and comforted them and supported them as the first
stages of shock began to set in.
Johan was presented with his camera by one of his caretakers.
Kathy had run a fair distance back toward the trailhead before finding a ranger leading
a small group of hikers.
She conveyed the situation and a life flight helicopter rescue was en route.
Gary Moses was one of the first medcis to administer first aid.
He recognized that carrying the victims back up the cliff was impossible and dangerous
to everyone involved.
As the medics removed his clothes Johan commented, “Good thing I wore clean underwear”, making
the medic chuckle.
The rescuers decided on a “short haul” rescue which involved flying the helicopter
close enough to the cliff to drop a gurney to load the patient, then flying them out
to medical assistance.
This is the riskiest method of rescue.
Johan had 26 major wounds with 60–80% of his scalp was removed.
He broke the C2 vertebrae in his neck.
His right eye orbital was broken.
He ran a marathon in under 4 hours less than 6 months after the attack.
Jenna broke a vertebrae in her back and her coccyx, she was also bitten on her head and
shoulder.
She declined plastic surgery repair to her face because the scars helped her remember
her struggle.
She completed medical studies at UC Irvine and Columbia University.
Johan returned to the Grinnell Trail and completed the hike to help him recover mentally.
The bears were not euthanized due to it being a defensive attack.
Glacier National Park has one to two non-fatal bear attacks each year and has recorded only
ten fatal bear attacks since 1967 which includes our previous case near Going To Sun Road.