The attack took place while the class, a group of about 20, was taking a walk while on a lunch break in Bella Coola, about 600 miles northwest of Vancouver. Two individuals were in critical condition, according to the CBC, and another two were seriously injured.
Authorities said additional people were treated at the scene but did not require transport to hospital.
Veronica Schooner, a mother of a child in the fourth and fifth grade elementary class, told the Canadian Press that teachers fought off the attacking animal.
One male teacher “got the whole brunt of it” and was among the people taken by helicopter from the scene, she said.
Schooner said her son Alvarez, 10, was so close to the animal he “even felt its fur” as he was “running for his life.”
The students were from the Acwsalcta School, a pre-K-12 school run by the Nuxalk Nation. The names and ages of the children injured have not been released.
“The victims were part of a school group of students and teachers having lunch along a trail near the river when a grizzly bear emerged from the forest and attacked,” the British Columbia Conservation Officer Service spokesman said in a statement on its Facebook page. “Multiple teachers physically intervened, using bear spray and a bear banger, to drive the bear away.”
He also said the bear may have been previously injured, which apparently would contribute to its aggressive behavior.
The dangerous animal has yet to be located, according to the latest reports.
Contributor Lowell Cauffiel is the best-selling author of Below the Line and nine other crime novels and nonfiction titles. See lowellcauffiel.com for more.
Breitbart News
Read the full article .
