Some have already likened it to a Hollywood film and a Fife man’s fight with a grizzly bear would not look out of place on the silver screen.
As we reported, Cupar man Greg Boswell escaped with his life by punching a bear when it attacked him while he was climbing in Canada.
Speaking to The Courier, Mr Boswell’s father Pete told how his son stumbled as he and colleague Nick Bullock tried to run away from the bear on the mountainside, leaving him largely defenceless.
“It’s incredible that he’s still alive,” he said. “The bear got hold of him and bit straight through his boot, but Greg being Greg, whether it was foolhardy or not, grabbed the bear’s mouth and tried to pull its jaws apart.
“At that point Greg said if the bear closed his mouth it would have taken his hand off, although it ripped the thumb right off his glove and let go.”
Mr Boswell said it was either his son’s headlamp shining into the bear’s eyes or the presence of Mr Bullock, who had run back to help his friend, that distracted the animal and allowed the pair to escape.
However, with Greg losing a lot of blood from his wounds, they still had to get back to civilisation in the dark amid fears the bear was still a threat.
Mr Boswell added: “They tried to get back to where they had come from, but in the mayhem they took a wrong turn and ended up about an hour away.”
The pair eventually found their way back to their equipment and abseiled down the mountain, wading through their tracks to a road before driving to seek medical attention.
They arrived at Banff Emergency Hospital in the early hours of the morning, where Mr Boswell had several leg wounds attended to and stitched up.