A 10-year-old boy in Connecticut was taken to a hospital after he was attacked by a black bear on Oct. 16 while he was in his grandparents’ backyard.
Neighbor Jonathan Digimas says he heard the boy screaming and found the boy’s grandfather, in a wheelchair, trying to fight off the nearly 250-pound animal in the yard in the town of Morris. Digimas says he grabbed a steel pipe to try and help.
“I picked up the pipe and I threw it at the bear as hard as I could. I struck it in the head,” he told NBC Connecticut. “My neighbor and my neighbor’s wife brought the little boy, their grandson, inside. He was bleeding from his foot and he had claw marks all over his back.”
Digimas says the grandfather was also able to hit the bear with a crowbar. The boy was taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The bear was captured and euthanized, reports the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Environmental Conservation Police. Officials say it’s uncommon for black bears to attack a human and remind people not to leave bird feeders out and wait until pickup day to take out their trash.