CHURCHILL, Manitoba, Sept. 10 (UPI) -- A Canadian man said he fended off a polar bear attack by startling the animal with the light from his cellphone.
Garett Kolsun, of Winnipeg, was in Churchill, Manitoba, Saturday on a job and walking to his lodgings 1:30 a.m. local time Saturday when the attack happened, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp. reported Monday.
"As I looked over, I could see a polar bear charging me. It was running full tilt towards me," Kolsun said. "So I turned to try to run to find someplace safe to go. But where I was there was no place to really go."
Kolsun said he kept running and yelling and turning on the bear before trying to kick in the door of a bakery.
"At that point the bear was basically right on top of me," he said. "I was yelling and screaming, trying to keep it away from me. Throughout all this it had swatted at me a few times and it had bit me."
"So I pulled my cellphone out of my pocket, turned it on and the screen lit up," he said. "I turned it towards the bear, put it in his face and it stepped back."
He said that gave him enough time to run to a home where a family let him in. He called a cab, which took him to the hospital. He was treated for puncture wounds to his hip where the bear bit him and scratch marks down his chest.
