June 22, 2007
Chris Everhart just had a Father's Day he'll never forget. The ex-Marine saved the lives of his three young sons when a 300-pound bear attacked their Georgia campsite last weekend.
While cleaning up after dinner, the family came face to face with the large animal.
"From out of nowhere we heard this loud crash," Everhart said on "Good Morning America." "For a second, I didn't know what it was, but I realized it was a bear. I went to the back of the Jeep to get my pots and pans to scare the bear off."
At the same time, Everhart's 6-year-old son, Logan, tried to frighten the animal. Instead of running away, the bear turned on the boy. Logan's brother, Kyle, tried to help him.
"I threw about five rocks at the bear to keep him away," Kyle Everhart said.
Realizing his sons could be killed, Everhart grabbed a log and threw it at the bear's head, striking and killing him.
"I forgot all about pots and pans and picked up whatever I could to try to distract, fend off, do what I could to get this bear away," Everhart said.
Latest in a String of Bear Attacks
The Georgia campsite incident is the latest in a string of bear attacks. One week ago in Utah's American Fork Canyon, 11-year-old Sam Ives died after a black bear dragged him from his tent and fatally mauled him.
The same bear ripped through another couple's tent hours before the attack. It was later killed and airlifted out of the park.
In upstate New York Monday, a black bear was caught strolling in and out of yards in a small residential neighborhood.
Jim Karpowitz of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources believes the abundance of bear sightings may be due to recent droughts.
"When it's hot and dry like this bears are short on food and they go looking for food and sometimes they create problems," he said.
For Everhart, the 300-pound bear that attacked his sons was almost a problem too big to handle.
"This one got a little too aggressive for me," he said. "If the bear had gotten near my kids, I would have just jumped on it. Knowing me, that's what I would have done, anything to make sure my kids were safe."
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