Thursday, June 12, 2008

Joshua McKim: Bear Attack Survivor

While in the forest picking mushrooms (in Wallowa Mountains above his hometown of Halfway), Joshua McKim was attacked by a Black Bear. Luckily he had his .45 with him (I substituted magazine for clip between () in the quotation below):

. . .the bear started moving.

Right at McKim.

McKim yelled.

"He kind of hesitated for a second," McKim said.

"Then he came on. Faster."

McKim fired the first of the eight bullets in the .45's (magazine).

"The first shot hit him in the shoulder."

The bear tumbled, rolling for about 10 feet until it came to a flat place.

. . . The bear righted itself and kept moving, not directly at McKim but in his direction.

The bear was closer now, 15 yards or so.

McKim pulled the trigger until the (magazine) was empty.

"I knew I was hitting him; I didn't know where," he said. "I wasn't about to let him get any closer."

The bear careened into a patch of brush and McKim couldn't see the animal.

"I wasn't about to go into the brush with a wounded bear in there," he said. "I couldn't see much."

Besides, he was out of bullets.

McKim walked half a mile or so to where half a dozen of his relatives and friends were looking for morels.

His dad, Ivan McKim, found the bear, dead, beneath a tree . . .

7 comments:

firefighter4884 said...

moral of the story...

carry a backup mag :)

glad he got out of it ok though

--Jim

Dustin said...

I was thinking the same thing. No big deal if you have more rounds than you need, but it can be a very big deal if you run out & need more.

DJK said...

A backup mag, or a backup gun....a New York reload.


Good thing that guy was carrying. It's nice to see that nobody is suing him or putting him in jail for protecting himself.

Anonymous said...

And to think, the humane society wants to maintain the gun ban in national parks, in the name of protecting bears: http://www.learnaboutguns.com/2008/06/15/humane-society-of-the-united-states-opposes-self-defense-rights/

Dustin said...

Exactly. As if disarming law abiding citizens somehow protects bears from criminal poachers. Criminal poachers are fine with illegal poaching but they would not poach if it was also illegal to have an assembled loaded weapon with them. Or perhaps they think there are a lot of "spontaneous" poachers who see a bear & suddenly decide to poach just because they happen to have a loaded gun.

NoraLeighMcKim said...

Hey, my name is Nora Leigh McKim daughter of Ivan and Susan McKim, I'm 19 and Joshua McKim is my brother.

Dustin said...

Welcome Nora, thanks for stopping by!