Talk about a bit of bad luck. A hunter's pistol recently jammed during the worst moment possible. It jammed while he was getting attacked by a grizzly.
In fact, the pistol ended up jamming twice during the attack. Fortunately, the hunter kept calm and was able to get the weapon firing again. That's likely what saved his life.
"The fact that he was able to clear the pistol and get it firing again in the middle of the attack indicates that he trained frequently with it," said Ryan Allen, owner of Frontier Arms in Cheyenne. Hunter Landon Clement spoke with Cowboy State Daily about the devastating attack. It happened while he was in the Upper Green River Basin in Wyoming.
The gun jammed during the middle of the attack. It jammed again after Clement fired his last shot. Both ammunition and debris as well as gripping can cause a gun to jam.
Grizzly Attacks Hunter
"Most instances of failure to feed in a semiautomatic pistol is because of improper grip," Art Huckfeldt, who works at Frontier Arms, told Cowboy State Daily.
As for the attack itself, Clement said the grizzly charged him and bit right into his left thigh. He managed to aim his pistol and fire upon the bear, killing it. "She lunged right at me," he said. "I saw nothing but her head and her white teeth coming right at me."
According to the hunter, it all happened so quickly. That makes it even more astonishing that he managed to clear the weapon and defend himself. Afterward, he said he had a lot of adrenaline pumping. The grizzly ended up hitting him like a freight train.
"I did not feel the pain in the moment," he said. "I could feel the force that it put on me. It felt like a freight train. I've never felt that much force in my life. It's unbelievable that something could do that to me, and how fast it happened."
The hunter ended up with four puncture wounds on his thigh but managed to avoid any lasting injury or loss to his life.
