A jogger who was chased by a bear on a Tuolumne County road escaped with minor injuries, though he lost a shoe during his panicked sprint and ended up on the roof of a stranger’s SUV.
The attack happened around 5 p.m. Monday, Aug. 12, in the community of Long Barn, along Highway 108.
The Mi-Wuk Sugar Pine Fire Protection District said paramedics were called to North Fork Road, a string of homes in a forested area, to treat a man who had suffered a bite to the leg and scratches.
The man reportedly said he was jogging on the road when he came across a bear cub — and then the adult black bear emerged from the trees.
He fled, with the bear close behind him and swiping at his back. When he reached a home, he attempted to take refuge atop a vehicle in the driveway.
“The young man is standing on the roof of our Escalade,” the car’s owner told Sacramento TV station KOVR. “The bear is … literally jumping up at him.”
She said his shirt was shredded, and one shoe had slipped off and was flapping as he ran.
The bear was gone by the time sheriff’s deputies arrived. A California Department of Fish and Wildlife spokesperson told the Union Democrat that its investigators took over the case and as of Tuesday were still looking for the bear.
The man, who was not identified, was released from a hospital on Monday and returned to North Fork Road the next day to thank the residents who had come to his aid.
California recorded its first known fatal attack by a black bear on a human last year, when a 71-year-old woman was killed in her Downieville home.
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