Brown bear attacks seven teens in Alaska

Seven teen boys attacked by a brown bear with her cub in Alaska Saturday night.

A mother bear apparently thinking she was protecting her cub attacked a group of seven teens involved in a leadership course on Saturday night near Chulitna, Alaska, according to KTVA News.

Two of the seven teens are critically injured, two are in serious condition, and the other three sustained minor injuries by the brown mother bear with her tagging cub, reported Colleen Kelly of KTVA Alaska News.

The teens attacked by the brown bear with her cub were not from Alaska and have been in the wilderness for about a month in a leadership survival skills course there.

The seven teen boys were near the end of a 30-day course when the brown mother bear attacked Saturday night around 8:30 p.m. They were about 120 miles north of Anchorage and were not rescued until early Sunday.

While crossing a river single file, the kids in front yelled out that there was a bear, those first in line were attacked and received the worst of the wounds but all seven boys sustained injuries.

While waiting to be rescued the boys set up a tent and attended to each other's injuries and activated their Personal Location Beacon and were located by a pilot and trooper aboard an emergency helicopter at 2:45 a.m.

KTVA identifies the seven injured boys attacked by the brown bear as:

Joshua Berg, 17, New City, New York

Samuel Gottsegen, 17, Denver, Colorado

Samuel Boas, 16, Westport, Connecticut

Noah Allaine, 16, Albuquerque, New Mexico

Simeon Melman, 17, Huntington, New York

Victor Martin, 18, Richmond, California

Shane Garlock, 16, Pittsford, New York

From National Geographic Brown Bears--Despite their enormous size, brown bears are extremely fast, having been clocked at speeds of 30 miles per hour (48 kilometers per hour). They can be dangerous to humans, particularly if surprised or if a person gets between a mother bear and her cubs
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