Teen Recovering from Bear Attack
from staff reports
PORTER TOWNSHIP – A Porter Township teenager is reported on the mend after she was badly injured when attacked by a black bear while hunting deer on the family farm along the Jacksonville Road.
The victim was 18-year-old Camille Marie Bomboy. She was treated initially at the Lock Haven Hospital, then transported to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, her condition reported as fair.
The incident occurred at 4 p.m. Monday at 7786 Jacksonville Road, Mill Hall.
State police said Bomboy, a freshman at Lock Haven University, was hunting deer, engaged in the act of a deer “drive,” part of a large family hunting party.
Police said she observed three black bear cubs run past her during the drive and turned around to see a large bear charging her.
According to the police report, the bear knocked her to the ground and began to bite her. Her step-father, Mike Courter was nearby, witnessed the attack and was able to scare the bear off the victim, police said. The bear at that point ran off.
The victim’s stepbrother, Kyle Courter, told WNEP-TV he “heard sister screaming and I went running. By the time I got there I heard a couple gunshots.” He said his father fired a shot into the air and scared off the bear.
The younger Courter estimated the bear at between 200 and 300 pounds. He credited his father with saving his stepsister’s life. “If he wouldn’t have been there she wouldn’t be with us,” he told the Scranton TV station.
Police said Bomboy suffered multiple deep tissue bites to her arms and shoulders and a deep head laceration.
Pennsylvania Game Commission officials are now handling the investigation; they believe the attacking bear was a sow acting to protect her cubs. A Game Commission official said such attacks are infrequent.
