Helmet helps man survive bear attack

Published 10:35 pm Wednesday, September 19, 2007

OLALLA — A couple of barks from his dog, ahead of him on the trail, was all the warning Anthony Blasioli got. An instant later he was fighting with a black bear for his life.

Returning to Banner Forest Heritage Park for the first time since the attack, Blasioli 51, of Port Orchard, a Boeing Co. software developer, told the Kitsap Sun it was only after he prayed that the bear ended the attack.

In an interview with CNN aired Wednesday morning, he also said his bicycle helmet helped save his life.

“I think it did some help there because he bit through and got my ear … but the rest of my face is still here, so I’m glad about that,” Blasioli said.

State wildlife experts tried without success to locate and trap the bear. The park was closed until Monday and has been posted with warning signs.

At the park Monday with his father and mother, Blasioli said he had been riding his mountain bike, as he did every weekend, for 45 minutes to an hour on Sept. 2 when he heard a couple of barks from Pine, one of his two dogs, ahead of him on the narrow, bumpy trail.

He dismounted, expecting to see another park user and planning to tell the dogs to heel. Then he saw the bear.

“He was too close and too quick. I had no chance to decide what to do,” he said. “It’s surreal. You don’t understand this is happening. At one point I thought ‘This is it, I’m going to die.’ “

Blasioli said the bear knocked him backward into the brush and bit into the helmet, ripping out a chunk of foam along with the cartilage of his right ear and then tearing some muscle from his arm and shoulder as he kicked and tried to fight back.

“At one point, he bit my side and did one of those bite and jiggle things,” he said. “I thought, ‘There goes a bunch of meat there.’ “

Blasioli said he prayed for his life and almost immediately the bear ran away.

“I don’t remember what I said exactly, but I asked God, ‘I don’t want to die today,’ ” he said.

Blasioli then managed to get back onto his bike and pedaled back to the trailhead, where he met two people who called for emergency aid. He spent the next week at St. Joseph Medical Center in Tacoma.

In the attack, the bear “bit into my shoulder and biceps, so it’s been all sewn back up together again, so I haven’t been able to move my arm up and down for a while — and I still can’t,” he said. “Then he bit on my chest a few times and I had stitches there. He scratched my face and he almost got my neck … but it didn’t go through and get any vital veins.

“Then, you know, of course, he got my ear. My back is still all scratched up. He bit into my leg and I had teeth marks in each arm that have now scabbed over, so I’ve healed up pretty fast.”

Small scars remain visible on his forehead and chin, and he has black stitches along his right ear where the cartilage was torn away. He has feeling in his left arm, but his biceps and triceps were sewn together to recreate the muscle and doctors are unsure how much movement he will regain.

He said it will likely be some time before he resumes his regular two-hour bicycle rides in the park — and when he does he plans to ride with a partner.