NORTH BEND, Wash. — Two teenagers are recovering after encountering a bear while hiking up Mount Si yesterday.
It happened on the Mount Si trail on Tuesday afternoon, around 1 p.m.
King County Search and Rescue says one of the teens was attacked, and the other hurt their ankle while running away.
The trail was closed while Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife crews searched for the bear. They say the trail will remain closed until at least Thursday afternoon.
Sara Autio with King County Search and Rescue tells us the injuries were severe, but not life-threatening.
“As I understand, it’s some claw marks and particularly some injuries to lower extremities,” Autio said. “All in all, this could’ve been a situation that went from bad to even worse.”
She said the group of Jefferson High School students was hiking the popular trail Monday afternoon when they came across a mama black bear and her cubs.
For that group, it was their first-ever time hiking.
Alycia Scheidel with Conservation Northwest said black bears are not known for attacking.
“I like to tell people bears are individuals like people, just because one bear responds one way doesn’t mean the next bear will respond that way,” Scheidel said.
King County Search and Rescue happened to be nearby when the frantic call for help came in. They got there and started helping the hurt teenager in just 12 minutes.
“We had a team, Seattle Mountain Rescue, at the top of Mt. Si doing some technical training when they heard the page; they pivoted that team from training to an active mission response,” Autio said.
She says 40 responders across multiple agencies evacuated the trail and got the boy to the hospital.
“We took a bottom-up and top-down approach. Our team training made contact with the student injured by the bear. We pulled him out with an ATV,” Autio said.
They say there are around 22,000 black bears across Washington, so people should know what to do if they see one.
“If the bear starts to come closer and closer, be aggressive, yell, clap, if you have poles, put them in the air, get shoulder to shoulder to make yourself seem bigger,” explained Scheidel.
To read the full report on this incident, click here.
To learn more about staying safe near bears and using bear spray, click here.