http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/6856115p-6751904c.htmlGary Paterna was walking his dog down an overgrown trail in the woods southeast of his Chugach Foothills neighborhood Tuesday evening when a heart-stopping roar erupted behind him."I hadn't taken one or two steps when the bear burst out of the brush," he said Wednesday. "It charged down and then it stopped."It was a grizzly sow, with at least one cub, and it growled upon finding a human so close to its offspring. The encounter was near the boundary of Far North Bicentennial Park, perhaps 1,200 yards from suburban homes and lawns off the Tudor-Muldoon curve.
"What I remember was just how big the head was -- it seemed enormous," Paterna said later. "I was scared. I took another couple steps backward and then it hit me."The bear swatted his chest and knocked him to the ground so fast that Paterna later wasn't quite sure how it happened. But the dog, a 9-year-old Brittany spaniel named Tok, drew the bear's attention.The bear pounced on the dog, giving Paterna time to leap to this feet. He saw Tok trapped between the bear's paws and started to back away. He didn't get far.
Twice more, the bear knocked him down. Twice more the dog's presence seemed to interrupt the attack."Each time she hit me, it was a matter of backing off and snarling, and it was fast," he said. "More like a body check -- she'd hit me, knock me down and back off quickly."
After the third hit, the bear bolted up the trail, allowing Paterna and Tok to run for the Klutina Drive trail head, where he warned other hikers and called 911.
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