A woman had a horrifying encounter with a bear that nearly ended with her bear chow. Even years later, she still carries the scars of that fateful encounter.
Thankfully, a group of Siberian hunters in Tynda came across the woman before the animal could finish the job. They found her, severely wounded, and buried underneath leafs. The bear had savagely mauled her then buried her so that it could come back to her to finish the job. It wouldn't have been surprising if the woman died. But she somehow survived.
55-year-old Natalya Pasternak, a mother of three, reflected on her brush with death. She had been in the woods collecting birch sap with her 80-year-old friend Valentina Gorodetskaya. That's when the bear appeared and charged them. Although Natalya managed to outrun the beast, her compassion for her friend caused her to turn around and stop.
Bear Brutalizes Woman
'When I saw the bear, I tried to escape. Then I remembered about my friend and stopped. That was the moment when the predator attacked me,' she told The Siberian Times. The animal tore into her, ripping through her arms, legs, and head. It then began chewing on her legs. The woman and her friend tried to fight the animal.
"A quick thought hit me: 'If the bear takes my legs, I'll be disabled for the rest of my life. It's better to die then to be a burden to my children'", she said. She screamed for her friend to run and flee the bear. Her friend ran for help and called emergency services.
Somehow, she stayed conscious through the bear attack.
"Despite such a nightmare I didn't go mad. A prayer that I was screaming out loud helped me," she said. It then dragged and buried her underneath some leafs.
Fortunately, the hunters arrived after hours to rescue the woman. Hunter Sergei Ivanov had a rifle with him and saw the woman and the bear.
"I looked and saw a woman, almost completed buried," he said. "Only her bloodied face and one arm was sticking out, but she was alive and breathing."
That's when he shot and killed the animal. They then rescued the woman. It took weeks for her to recover.
She said, "It's terrible to imagine what could have happened if it wasn't for Valentina."
