Twice-Mauled Grizzly Photographer Still Loves His Subject

(June 8) -- Jim Cole knew he had to get up and get moving.

After unknowingly stepping on a grizzly bear in Yellowstone National Park in May 2007, Cole was knocked down and mauled by the mother bear. Bloodied and severely injured, though he didn't know how badly at the time, Cole had to flee to survive.

"I just knew I had to get right up off the turf," the photographer, who has studied grizzlies for many years, recalled in an interview on NBC's "Today" show this morning. "I knew that if I sat there for one minute, I'd be dead."

The attack happened in the park's Hayden Valley in a wide-open, off-trail area. It's the subject of Cole's new book, "Blindsided: Surviving a Grizzly Attack and Still Loving the Great Bear."

It was not the first time Cole was attacked by a grizzly -- he was mauled by one in 1993. Still, he believes they are smart, inquisitive and calm. The two attacks happened when the bear saw him first.

"I've never had a problem when I've seen the bear first," Cole said.

"I apparently walked right on her without knowing it," he said of the 2007 attack. "And she was on me -- bing! -- she was on me real quick. She drove me into the ground like a linebacker driving a running back into the ground."

Cole, who was 57 at the time, tried to get his bear spray from his belt but couldn't reach it. The bear was attacking his face with her claws.

"She raked, actually raked my face off," said Cole, an eye patch over his left eye. "Had she been using her mouth, I wouldn't be here doing this interview."

Cole, a photographer who has written other books on grizzlies, said he had no time to react. "I was at her mercy," he said. "If she had wanted me dead, I would be dead. I had absolutely no chance. None."

He believes the bear was protecting her cub. "Most grizzly bear attacks are defensive," he said. "They're bigger, they're faster, they're stronger than us. If they wanted to be killing us and stalking us, they could be."

Alone in the valley miles from his van, Cole could "just barely see the sunlight" through his injured right eye. "So I followed the sun out," he said, hiking about three miles to come within 50 yards of the road, where passersby found him.

He had hours of surgery to repair his face. A friend said he was unable to speak, breathing through a ventilator and attached to a feeding tube. "He's lucky to be alive," longtime friend Rich Berman said at the time of the attack.

Cole, who said he's back out in the field and is "almost 100 percent," described his life's work.

"My mission is to educate people about bears so they understand the true nature of bears," he said. "Attacks are defensive and they're not out there stalking us, and they're peace-loving animals and they're just the most fascinating, interesting animals I've ever known."