Do you use an alarm to wake up in the morning? How about a black bear biting your head?
That's the alarming wake-up call a hunter in the remote Idaho wilderness experienced recently.
Stephen Vouch, 29, had gone to sleep after a day of exertion on a river with his two hunting pals. "We were tired after rafting and went to bed around 10:30 p.m." Vouch told the Idaho Press newspaper.
But he wasn't to get much sleep that night. At about 2 a.m. he felt something tugging at his hair.
And then he realized a bear was biting at his head.
"He got a hold of my head, and that's what woke me up," the Boise resident, who was in the area hunting bighorn sheep, told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "That's when I kind of freaked out."
Wouldn't you?
His scream startled the bear, which jumped and hit the tarp above where the group was sleeping.
"That's when my buddy's gun went off," Vouch said.
The bear, wounded by a shot from the .45-caliber handgun, scrambled into a nearby tree, according to the AP. Vouch, cut but not seriously injured, then shot and killed it.
The men then skinned the bear and cut off its head to bring with them as they rafted the following day down to safety, according to the Idaho Press.
The hunting group also patched Vouch up, the AP reported, then rafted downstream before flying out of the remote Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness on Sunday. He was treated Monday at a hospital for cuts to his head and released.
"It's a very humbling situation, and I feel really lucky," Vouch told the Idaho Press.
"The pain, it was literally just like somebody would grab a handful of your hair," Vouch told local TV station KBOI. "When they starting ripping your hair out, this little tingles you feel...that's what I felt. That's the sensation that woke me up and made me throw my arm back."
Idaho Fish and Game officials estimate that the male bear was about 3 to 7 years old and weighed 200 to 275 pounds. Jon Rachael, state wildlife manager with the department, said it's not clear why the bear entered the camp because the hunters had stored their food properly.
Vouch said he plans to return to the area within the next several weeks to continue hunting for bighorn sheep.
"I don't blame the bear," he told KBOI. "I am a slow protein compared to an elk and a deer. I'm lying on the ground right there for his picking."
