Survivor of Mont. bear attack says she played dead

COOKE CITY, Mont. — A woman who was attacked by a bear in the middle of the night at a busy campground was bitten on her arm and leg before she instinctively played dead so the animal would leave her alone, she said Thursday.

At least one bear rampaged through the campground near Yellowstone National Park in the middle of the night Wednesday, killing one man and injuring Deb Freele of Ontario and another man.

Appearing on the network morning talk shows from a Wyoming hospital, Freele said she woke up just before the bear bit her arm.

"I screamed, he bit harder, I screamed harder, he continued to bite," she said.

Her survival instinct kicked in, and she realized that the screaming wasn't working.

"I told myself, play dead," she said. "I went totally limp. As soon as I went limp, I could feel his jaws get loose and then he let me go."

She said the bear was silent.

"I felt like he was hunting me."

A frequent camper, Freele said that she was already prepared to go camping again hours after the attack, though she acknowledged that it will take time to recover both physically and emotionally.

She suffered severe lacerations and crushed bones from bites on her arms. The male survivor suffered puncture wounds on his calf.

The names and ages of the male victims have not been released.

The bear attack was the most brazen in the Yellowstone area since the 1980s, wildlife officials said. Wildlife officials still were trying to capture the bear — or bears — late Wednesday with five baited traps. The campground was closed.

One camper at the Soda Butte Campground said he heard the screams from two of the attacks.

Don Wilhelm, a wildlife biologist from Texas, thought the first scream was just teenagers, maybe a domestic dispute in the middle of the night. He tried to go back to sleep, stifling thoughts that a beast might be lurking outside his family's tent.

Minutes later, another scream — this one coming from the next campsite over, where a bear had torn through a tent and sunk its teeth into Freele's.

"First she said, "No!' Then we heard her say, 'It's a bear! I've been attacked by a bear!" said Wilhelm's wife, Paige.