(WHAS11) - Tim Scott was attacked by a black bear while hiking with his family at Red River Gorge on Sunday.
He described in detail how he tried several times to get away from the bear before he was attacked by the 150 pound animal.
Tim Scott and his family took their dogs out for a day of hiking along Grey's Arch Trail in Red River Gorge.
Scott walked a couple hundred yards ahead and stopped to enjoy the view when he heard something behind him.
"I turned around and there's a black bear standing on the trail between me and the trail head just sort of looking at me," says Scott .
The bear disappeared for a few seconds then reappeared in the exact same spot. Scott snapped a couple of pictures but the bear was not phased.
"This bear his decision was to start walking towards me. He's walking straight at me. I'm not alarmed at this point but it’s definitely odd," said Scott.
He even began dropping personal items in an attempt to distract the bear like a cell phone case, his hat and his waist bag but the bear keeps getting closer.
"He got within three feet of me and I thought this is not working out well. This is not the way a bear is supposed to behave," said Scott.
All the while Scott was screaming for help and keeping eye contact with the bear.
When he reached a small ledge he had no choice but to turn his back.
"As I stepped up a two foot step, he lunged forward and bit me on my left calf. He didn’t hang on at that point but I knew he had drawn blood. But it was a real bite. It was at that point I realized this was a bad bear and this was probably not going to end well at all," said Scott.
The bear lunged again then toppled Scott.
"This time he caught me a good bite on my right thigh and picked me up and threw me. Threw me about four feet off the trail. Immediately he was on top of me chewing on my leg. He made a trial bite on the backside of my left leg then went back to his original big bite and really sunk in and began shaking me like a dog shakes a toy," said Scott.
His last resort was a three inch blade pocket knife in his pant pocket, and just as he prepared to stab the bear, a group of hikers came by. One throws a backpack and another waved a stick.
He managed to crawl away and the group walked a quarter of a mile back to the road to an awaiting ambulance. For much of the way the bear continued to follow them.
His son used an iPhone application of a police siren to finally scare the bear away for good.
Scott admits he's very lucky. He is now standing with the help of crutches. The only evidence of the attack is 50 to 60 stitches in both legs.
It will be at least six weeks until he's able to hike again. He agrees this bear needs to be taken out of circulation, but he doesn't want this incident to cause panic.
"I want people to carry away from this the idea that the bears deserve to be in the woods as much as we do. And though I was the victim of essentially a bear criminal, I don’t bear anything ill against the bear population," said Scott.
