Woman Credits Hair Clip and Dog for Saving Her Life During Bear Attack

Vanessa Chaput was out for a run with her dog on June 30 near her Yukon village west of Whitehorse when she came across three grizzly bears and one of them attacked.

Chaput is a member of the Kaska or Kaska Dena First Nations people and says she grew up in bear country and knows what to do during an encounter.

“I was right beside them and it was just too close,” she told APTN News.

“I have a really good respect for them,” she said, “just because growing up with my dad and everything. When you go hunting, you’re in bear country, things are going to happen. And we have run into bears in the past. But I’ve never run into something like this before.”

Chaput says she tried to put distance between herself and the bears, but her dog, Luna, got off the leash and chased two of the bears away.

The third bear, a male, then charged and attacked her.

“When the bear had taken me down with my head in its mouth, my first thought was just kind of protect your vitals, so I went straight into the fetal position,” she said.

Chaput said she was wearing a plastic hair clip that broke in the bear’s mouth and surprised it long enough to let her go.

She says she quickly ducked behind a tree.

“I was able to get in-between and the bear ran in-between the willows. I was watching him and he turned around and charged back at me.”

But the bear then turned his attention to Luna who was barking, Chaput said.

“If it wasn’t for my dog barking, the bear was going to come finish the job.”

With the bear distracted, Chaput hurried toward the highway.

“I looked at my body and I’d seen my arm and I had blood coming down my face, so actually my one eye had gone red from the blood,” she said. “I knew I was bleeding heavily and that I needed to get help, so I didn’t run.

“I just kept my eye towards where the bear had gone and then I walked up onto the highway.”

She called 911 and her husband, who came and picked her up.

The nearby campground was evacuated and that weekend conservation officers euthanized three bears that matched the description from the attack.

Chaput spent a couple of weeks recovering in a hospital.

“I have puncture wounds all up in my arm. I have a broken bone,” she said. “I have a lot of nerve damage in that area and then my tricep was torn in two places.”

She says she doesn’t blame the bears, her dog or herself for what happened.

“It was wrong place at the wrong time. Again, it could have happened to anybody.”