Yellowknife (Oct 06/04) - Barely a split second passed between hearing its roar and seeing the fearsome animal charge out of the bush towards the man in front of him.

Tommy Lafferty says it was the largest bear he had ever seen -- and he's seen a lot of them.

"(The grizzly) bolted full-speed at Derek," says Lafferty. "It was huge and you could smell it. It was musky, like wet fur. It was that strong."

Above, grizzly attack victim Tommy Lafferty recuperates at home with girlfriend Ashley and daughter Kiana Mae. He came home Saturday after nine days in an Edmonton hospital. Lafferty (below) spent seven-and-a-half hours in surgery following the attack. Altogether, doctors needed over 200 stitches, not including staples, to close his wounds.- Mike W. Bryant/NNSL photos

Lafferty was among a party of three who had ventured out on the afternoon of Sept. 22 to check water levels on Steves Lake, on which sits the abandoned Colomac Mine, about 230 kilometres north of Yellowknife.

The two younger men, Lafferty, 25, and his cousin Alex, 19, a trainee -- both employees of Aboriginal Engineering -- had followed "Derek," a Department of Indian and Northern Affairs employee, into a low, muskeg area on the south side of the lake, about four kilometres from camp.

According to Lafferty, Derek was walking about six metres ahead of him, carrying a carpenter's level and a backpack. Alex was just a few paces behind Lafferty, carrying a tripod.

Lafferty says Derek may have been carrying flares and bear spray but he isn't sure. Alex was armed with bear spray and Lafferty had a fold-up knife holstered on the left side of his chest.

Their truck was parked on the side of a dirt road that cuts around the lake.

Bear tracks spotted

That morning, at their regular safety meeting, they were informed that bear tracks had been found near the mine's old mill. Lafferty says they were told an elder on site was going out to investigate.

Nonetheless, the men continued on with their work for the day.

They had walked about 150 metres, with about 50 metres to go, when the grizzly bear attacked.

Lafferty says the bear first knocked over Derek, who was holding his arm up to guard against it.

"I pushed Alex away and said, 'run,'" says Lafferty.

"I turned around and saw the bear open its jaws and I yelled at the bear and it turned its head towards me."

With three quick, zig-zagging pounces, the bear launched itself at Lafferty but he was able to push it away. He had tried to flip open the knife with his other hand but it -- along with his safety helmet -- went flying out of his grasp when the bear made contact.

The bear then lunged and bit him just above his right knee. Lafferty tried again to push it away, but the grizzly merely refocused its attack on his face.

Lafferty, recalling the way puppies can't bite fully down with a hand wedged in their jaws, jammed his left arm as far back as he could into the bear's mouth but the bear still managed to bite into his chin -- ripping away his bottom lip and exposing his teeth.

With the man's arm still in its mouth, the grizzly worked its way up to the top of Lafferty's head, tearing out a large piece of his scalp.

"I was hitting him with my right arm and trying to get him in the nose, whatever I could," says Lafferty.

"I felt a crushing and a grinding. I felt bone leaving."

Playing dead

Realizing the fight wasn't going well, Lafferty decided to play dead. The bear stopped attacking immediately and took off into the bush as fast as it appeared. Lafferty estimates the attack on him lasted for just over a minute, but he was bleeding profusely and in immense pain.

Derek came to his side shortly afterwards and together the two limped back to the truck. His terrified cousin was waiting inside. Lafferty ordered him to call the camp on the two-way radio, and ask for an airplane to be readied at the north end of the camp's runway.

Instead, an ambulance was waiting for them when they got there and the camp's medic, a man named Murray, immediately went to work on the two victims.

They were taken back to camp where Lafferty attempted several times to get a hold of his girlfriend Ashley on the phone, who was at home napping with their baby, but the phone was off the hook. He asked the medic to retrieve the photos he kept of them in the interim.

"I wanted my pictures of my baby and my girlfriend," says Lafferty.

"They were in my room. The only thing that made me feel better was them."

Eventually, he was able to reach Ashley, and a message was relayed to his parents that he had been attacked and severely injured.

Eventually the plane arrived and ferried the injured victims to Yellowknife for treatment at Stanton Territorial Hospital. A few hours later, Lafferty and Derek were medevaced to Edmonton for emergency surgery.

Nine days in hospital

Lafferty says he spent seven-and-a-half hours in surgery the following day, where doctors grafted skin from his left leg onto his scalp to close the gaping wound on his head. They also stitched up the various scratch and bite wounds on his body and treated the broken left arm he had wedged into the bear's mouth.

Altogether, doctors needed over 200 stitches, not including staples, to close his wounds.

Derek was treated for facial lacerations and wounds to his leg.

His parents and girlfriend kept a constant vigil at his bedside, which he says went a long way towards aiding in his recovery.

He spent nine days recuperating in hospital and returned to Yellowknife on Saturday.

Many questions linger in his mind now.

Until the investigation by wildlife officers is complete, Lafferty refuses to accept that the right bear was shot.

He says the 550lb male grizzly shot and killed by wildlife officers the day after the attack sounded too small.

"I've seen a lot of bears," says Lafferty, who worked for several years as a hunting and fishing guide.

"I know I might be a little biased because it did attack me but I thought it was the biggest bear I had ever seen."

Lafferty wouldn't speak about safety procedures at the camp, but he did say the federal government should re-think its firearms policy in remote mine clean-up camps like Colomac.

He says a gun is kept at the Colomac camp, but staff working in the field aren't allowed to carry one. He thinks staff should be properly trained how to use one and firearms should be carried when staff are away from camp.

'All three of us lived'

He says the outcome in his attack may have been a lot different had he been armed.

"This incident is going to be hanging around for a while," says Lafferty.

"Especially since all three of us lived and we can talk about it."

As for the hero label bestowed upon him, Lafferty says the real heroes were Murray the medic and other staff at Colomac who stayed calm and provided comfort during the crisis.

His horrible injuries and the constant pain in his body, make him wonder if he would react the same way should he come across a grizzly bear while unarmed in the bush again.

"I don't know why I yelled at the bear and I don't know why I fought the bear," says Lafferty.

"I've heard people say they would probably do the same thing. I think if it happened again I'd run away."

RWED shot 'the right bear'

A senior wildlife officer who, along with another officer, tracked, shot and killed a grizzly bear implicated in an attack two weeks ago, says he is "99 per cent" sure they got the right one.

Raymond Bourget, with the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development (RWED), said it's very unlikely the 550 lb male grizzly bear shot and killed Sept. 23 is not the same bear that mauled two people near the Colomac clean-up camp on Sept. 24.

"It had the same physical description as that given by other people," says Bourget.

Bourget says the clear give away were the claw mark injuries on the grizzly that were consistent with a fight with a black bear.

When wildlife officers visited the site a few hours after the attack, they found a black bear carcass that the grizzly had been feeding on and tracks leading away.

The next morning they returned to find the carcass had been moved about 200 metres and that there were more of the same tracks in the snow. They followed the tracks by helicopter and found a grizzly on the run, which they subsequently shot.