Allen Minish was alone and surveying land for a real estate agent in a wooded area off the Richardson Highway northeast of Glennallen, putting some numbers into his GPS unit when he looked up and saw a large brown bear walking about 30 feet away.

“I saw him and he saw me at the same time, and it’s scary,” he said by phone Wednesday from his hospital bed in Anchorage, a day after being mauled by the bear in a chance encounter.

The mauling left Minish with a crushed jaw, a puncture wound in his scalp so deep that the doctor said he could see bone, lacerations and many stitches after a 4½-hour surgery. He also is wearing a patch over his right eye and says the doctors are worried about it.

All that happened during an encounter he estimates lasted less than 10 seconds after Minish startled the bear Tuesday morning just off the Richardson Highway, near the small community of Gulkana, about 190 miles northeast of Anchorage.

The bear, which Minish said was larger than 300-pound black bears he has seen before, charged and closed the ground between them in a few seconds.

Minish tried to dodge behind small spruce trees. That didn’t stop the bear. He went through them.

As the bear neared, Minish held up the pointed end of his surveying pole and pushed it toward the bear to keep it away from him.

The bear simply knocked it to the side and the force of the blow knocked Minish to the ground.

“As he lunged up on top of me, I grabbed his lower jaw to pull him away,” he said, saying that’s how he got a puncture wound in his hand. “But he tossed me aside there, grabbed a quarter of my face.”

“He took a small bite and then he took a second bite, and the second bite is the one that broke the bones . and crushed my right cheek basically,” he said.

When the bear let go, Minish turned his face to the ground and put his hands over his head.

And then the bear just walked away.

He surmises the bear left because he no longer perceived Minish as a threat. The bear’s exit - Alaska State Troopers said later they did not locate the bear - gave him time to assess damage.

“I realized I was in pretty bad shape because I had all this blood everywhere,” he said.

He called 911 on his cellphone. While he was talking to a dispatcher, he pulled off his surveyor’s vest and his T-shirt and wrapped them around his head in an attempt to stop the bleeding.

Then he waited 59 minutes for help to arrive. He knows that’s how long it took because he later checked his cellphone record for the length of the time he was told to stay on the line with the dispatcher until rescue arrived.

At one point, Minish managed to give the dispatcher his exact coordinates from his GPS unit, but even that was a struggle.

“It took awhile to give them that because I had so much blood flowing into my eyes and on to the GPS, I kept having to wipe it all off,” he said.

He said one of the rescuers called him a hero after seeing how much blood was on the ground.

Rescuers tried to carry him through the woods to a road that parallels the nearby trans-Alaska pipeline to meet an ambulance. That didn’t work, and he said they had to help walk him a quarter mile through swamps, brush and trees. From there, he was taken to a nearby airport and flown to Providence Alaska Medical Center in Anchorage by a medical helicopter. He is listed in good condition.

Before help arrived, Minish said he worried about the bear returning to finish him off.

“I kept hearing stuff,” he said.

But every time Minish tried to lean up to look around, he got dizzy from his blood loss.


“He didn’t come back, and so I just lay there and worried about it,” he said.

Minish, 61, has had his share of bear encounters over the 40 years he’s lived in Alaska, but nothing like this. He owns his own surveying and engineering business, which takes him into the wild often.

“That’s the one lesson learned,” he said. “I should have had somebody with me.”

He had left his gun in the vehicle on this job but said it wouldn’t have mattered because the bear moved on him too fast for it to have been any use.

Minish can now add his name to the list of six people he knows who have been mauled by bears in Alaska.

“I guess I feel lucky,” Minish said, adding that someone told him he’s better off hurt than dead.

“In all honesty, it wouldn’t have mattered either way. You know, if it killed me, it killed me. I had a good life; I’m moving on. It didn’t kill me, so now let’s move on to the other direction of trying to stay alive,” he said.

This May 18, 2021, photo, provided by Allen Minish shows lacerations on Minish's head as he recuperates at a hospital in Anchorage. (Courtesy of Allen Minish via AP)

Yup...a partner with a 405 lever gun...sure would have helped

A good scar don't come cheap.

Dang it Man.

a partner with most any thing would have helped.

a good side arm might have also helped

he didn't say what he left in the truck , only that he didn't think it would have helped

it definitely didn't help in the truck

Broke the cardinal rule and paid. The reality is, we are not top of the food chain once we are disarmed.

darn lucky , guy ,

Gruesome. At least he's alive and he's.got one heck of a story to tell.

Wow that's wild.

I have 3 cousins in Anchorage right now for work and vacation. Before they left I told them don't forget their sidearm.

I don't have much Brown/Grizzly experience, but have had a few close encounters with them while hunting and fishing in Alaska. Those beasts are absolutely impressive, even more so when you see them at close range. I can see where a guy, armed to the teeth and good with a gun, could be bit without having the slightest chance to put his weapon to good use. Those lumbering behemoths can move like a scared jackrabbit in the blink of an eye. I freely admit that as long as I can see and watch them I am not afraid of them, but put me in an alder filled, tight quarters area where I can't see well.....along a stream where I also can't hear well, and I am a first rate pansy. Those darn things scare the literal shat right out of me.....well armed or not.

That is an experience that nightmares are made from. Lucky man to still be alive.

That guy's attitude says a lot seems like the kind of guy you want on your side in a scrape..... He tried fighting it a bit. Once he stopped resisting the bear left. Hard to second guess, play Monday morning QB....

Roll onto your belly so they don't bite your face off seems like good advice. They generally go for the head.

For sure.....If you have a gun to shoot!

They asked him what the bear sounded like...he said Rrrrrr!

I prefer to be armed with both gun and dog. In my mind, a good bear dog is one that sticks close by, provides early detection and warning services, and will bark and dodge enough at close quarters to draw a nearby bear's attention away from me. A bad bear dog would be one that ranges out, finds and harasses bear, and runs back to me with the (This word is unacceptable on Trapperman) off bear on its heels. I'm on dog #3 now, a German Shepherd, and while she hasn't met a bear yet, she shows promise with moose. Dogs #1 and #2 were a Lab-Chesapeake cross, and a German Shepherd-sleddog cross, respectively. They both performed admirably.