Jessica Gamboa bear attack may just be one of a the few rare cases where a human survives a bear attack. The Jessica Gamboa bear attack in Alaska amazingly left the 25-year-old alive as she claimed that she played dead in order to survive.
According to ABC News, Jessica Gamboa has been used to people telling her to play dead during a bear attack. She was able to finally and unintentionally put this knowledge to the ultimate test as she unexpectedly ran into a brown bear on the grounds of a military base in Alaska.
The Associated Press reports that as the Jessica Gamboa bear attack occurred, the bear knocked Gamboa down. It then picked her up and threw her to the ground. The bear then went on to strike Gamboa several times more with her powerful paws.
The Jessica Gamboa bear attack happened on May 18, and throughout the attack, Gamboa said that she just lay in a fetal position and remained silent, and doing this might just be the reason that she survived.
In a videotaped interview released by the Army on Thursday, Gamboa said, "I actually can't even believe this actually really happened. It seems still surreal, just for the fact that I'm still alive - seems unreal."
The taped interview was conducted on Tuesday at her hospital bed. In the interview, the Jessica Gamboa bear attack was told by Gamboa herself. She said that as she surrendered herself to the bear during the attack, she met with the animal and her two cubs. CBS Local reports that the attack occurred at the Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage.
Gamboa lives in Sacramento, California and she is married to a soldier assigned at the base to the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division.
According to The AP, the Army has also released an interview with a combat medic from Rockford, Michigan named Sgt. Collin Gillikin. Gillikin was able to stop the Jessica Gamboa bear attack and rescue Gamboa after it left her with lacerations to her neck, arms and legs, a torn ear and neck fractures. Her neck wound was reportedly visible in the video.
Meanwhile, according to Mark Sledge, a senior conservation law enforcement officer at the base, there is only one other known close encounter with a bear apart from the Jessica Gamboa bear attack. In 2010, a black bear reportedly gnawed a child's leg without breaking the skin when a group of children saw it and played dead. Sledge said that the animal began running off as a girl yelled at it.
Sledge said that in the case of the Jessica Gamboa bear attack, Gamboa responded rightly. Sledge participates in briefings introducing newly arrived J-BER service members to life in Alaska, including dealing with bears and moose. According to Sledge, what Gamboa did showed the bear that she was not a threat. Sledge said, "All that sow was worried about was the protection of her babies.
On the day of the attack, Gamboa and her husband, Jacob, were reportedly jogging at the sprawling base when they became separated. Gamboa was running 20 minutes when she saw a cub on the side of the road. When she thought that the mother bear had to be around, she found that it was trotting towards her already. That's when she also saw the second cub.
The Jessica Gamboa bear attack reportedly happened so fast that Gamboa was not sure if she was being bitten or lashed. She reportedly remembered the mother bear knocking her down, picking her up and carrying her to the side of the road to where the cubs were. After that, the bear then put her down on a grassy embankment and pummeled her. It paused and attacked two more times as Gamboa lay on the ground curled in a fetal position. She didn't scream or fight. The bear then left.
After the Jessica Gamboa bear attack, Gamboa laid still for a couple minutes then crawled out of the embankment and rested a little while longer. There was blood everywhere, her head was hurt and her neck was pulsing. The mother of a 4-year-old son said, "I felt completely like I was beaten half to death."
At that moment, she called out for her husband as loudly as she could, however got no response. She prayed for strength to make it back to their truck so she could call 911. She then held both her hands to her bleeding neck and she started walking back on the road hoping that someone would see her. That's when she saw a car, which was driven by Gillikin. He rushed her to the base hospital and Gamboa was later moved to the Alaska Native Medical Center in Anchorage. Gamboa was reportedly released from the hospital Thursday.
Jessica Gamboa bear attack reportedly changed Gillikin's life after he saved her. He said that until then, he was never a man of faith, "It kind of made me realize there's something bigger than myself out there."
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
