John Casteel waited hours on the tundra with other hunters until he could be flown to an Anchorage hospital. Via kdlgradio
A Dillingham hunter was mauled by a brown bear on Friday. Alaska State Troopers spokesperson Tim DeSpain said in an email that 40-year-old John Casteel was hunting up the Nushagak River, 20 miles by air from Dillingham, when he was mauled.
“They had a nurse with them and other hunting parties that helped stabilize him and control his wounds,” she said. “He stayed out in the wilderness for four hours, laying on the tundra. ... The hunting party that he was with, they started a fire and they tried to keep him warm and keep him conscious and awake until the helicopter came and got him. It was a rough Friday night for us.”
“The whole time, John was conscious. He was awake during this whole ordeal,” she said. “And after they got him stabilized, cleaned up, they got a medevac out of Dillingham and sent him to Anchorage.”