A 16-year-old runner took a wrong turn during an adventure race in Alaska that ended up costing him his life Sunday.
Patrick Cooper had reached the midway point of the Robert Spurr Memorial Hill Climb near Anchorage when he accidentally ran off the trail and became lost. Searching for a way back to the race course, he instead found himself face-to-face with a 250-pound black bear.
As he fled the aggressive animal, Cooper managed to place a desperate call to his brother, saying that the bear was chasing him through the thick forest of Chugach State Park, the Associated Press reported. The brother immediately notified race director Brad Precosky, who ordered race crews to begin a search for the teenager.
Two hours later, the search party was shocked to discover the bear standing over Cooper’s mauled body about a mile up the path, the Alaska Dispatch News reported. Precosky received the news in a terse and terrifying message from one of the members of the search party: “Eyes on bear. Guarding the body. Coordinates were correct. Need a weapon.”
Park rangers soon arrived at the site, and one of them shot the bear in the face with a shotgun to scare it away from the body. The wounded animal scampered away and hasn’t been seen since, according to Alaska Department of Fish and Game spokesman Ken Marsh.
Fish and Game officials believe that the attack was the result of rare predatory behavior by the black bear. The animals are not known to stalk humans, especially so close to a noisy event with cheering spectators.
“It’s very unusual,” Marsh said of the mauling. “It’s sort of like someone being struck by lightning.”
How and when Cooper lost the trail remains unclear. Hundreds of people were lining the course during the race and a trail “sweeper” was following the runners to ensure that nobody veered of the path. Still, no one witnessed Cooper go off the trail, Precosky told the Dispatch News.
Cooper sent his distress message at 12:37 p.m., touching off the search by family members and race officials. They used the “find my iPhone” app to home in on his location, which was about a mile from the trailhead and about 500 yards off into steep, densely-wooded terrain.
John Weddleton, a spectator who had joined the search, stumbled upon the gruesome scene at 2:50 p.m.
“And then I saw him,” Weddleton told KTUU. “No motion. He looked awful.”
Cooper’s death is the first fatal bear mauling in the Anchorage area since 1995, according to Fish and Game officials. Precosky said that trail runners in Alaska inherently risk coming into contact with bears, but he was shocked that such a large gathering of people didn’t cause the bear that killed Cooper to stay far away from the race course.
“I think everyone is just terribly sickened by the whole episode,” he said. “Mountain runners are never safer than when they are in a race. How often do you have 300 people around you, making noise?”
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