Explorer woke with head in polar bear mouth
An Arctic explorer has been savaged by a polar bear which grabbed him by the head while he was sleeping. Sebastian Plur Nilssen says he woke up to find the bear's jaws around his head as it lifted him up and dragged him out of his tent on the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard.
The 23-year-old's screams quickly alerted his expedition partner who reached for his gun -- but not before the polar bear was 25 metres away.
By then the bear had already pierced Nilssen's lung with it's teeth and was shaking him around 2.5m in the air in a bid to stun him.
Which you'd think was a bit unnecessary… I'd be pretty stunned already if I was woken up like that.
Luckily (though not for the bear) Nilssen's pal Ludvig Fjeld managed to shoot the beast and save his friend, though it apparently tool five shots to kill it.
The injured explorer was then airlifted from the scene and rushed to hospital where he underwent an emergency three-hour operation
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The injured explorer was then airlifted from the scene and rushed to hospital where he underwent an emergency three-hour operation
.
