Grizzly Suspected in Attack Caught; Survivor Played Dead

(July 29) -- Deb Freele was asleep in her tent when she awoke to a bear chomping on her arm.

"To wake up to something crunching on your arm ... I can't describe the feeling," Freele told ABC's "Good Morning America" today.

Hours after Freele recounted her terrifying encounter at a Montana campground near Yellowstone National Park, authorities announced the capture of the 300-plus-pound grizzly suspected in the unprovoked rampage that left one person dead and another injured.

The female grizzly was captured in a trap set in a culvert Wednesday evening, and two of her cubs were caught in a campground near Yellowstone, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks spokesman Ron Aasheim told AOL News today. He said a team of bear experts is working to lure a third cub into a trap.

DNA tests may confirm that the bear is the one involved in the deadly attack as soon as tonight. Before the capture, authorities said they had planned to kill the bear involved in the attack once they confirmed its identity through saliva and other DNA evidence.

Aasheim though, said the final decision about what to do with the bear rests with the Interagency Grizzly Bear Committee, which did not immediately return calls for comment today. But Aasheim said he was confident that the bear would roam free no longer. "It will be removed from the wild population for sure," he said.

Authorities believe it's the bear involved in the attack in the Soda Butte Campground because it returned to the site where Kevin Kammer, a 48-year-old man from Grand Rapids, Mich., was killed, Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks Warden Capt. Sam Sheppard told The Associated Press today.

Freele, an avid camper from London, Ontario, thinks she survived only because she played dead.

"It was a split second before something just told me something was wrong," Freele told ABC. "I woke up and the bear bit down on me. I screamed, and he bit down harder. I screamed some more, and he continued to bite and shake, and I could hear my bones breaking."

"I don't know if you call it instinct, but something inside me just said ... 'I want to live.' And I just told myself, 'Play dead,'" she said on CBS's "The Early Show." After a few seconds, the bear opened his jaws and let Freele go.

The AP said Freele suffered lacerations and crushed bones on her arms. The other injured survivor, Ronald Singer, 21 of Alamosa, Colo., had puncture wounds on a calf.

The area, just outside of Yellowstone, is considered bear country and is heavily trafficked by grizzlies and less-aggressive black bears. The biggest source of bear attacks is food carelessly stored at campsites. In this case, officials said the campers had stored their food in metal containers and had done nothing to provoke the bear.

"They'd done everything right," Ron Aasheim of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said today on NBC's "Today" show.

Paige and Don Wilhelm said they awoke in their tent Wednesday night to the sound of a woman screaming. "Words cannot describe what it's like to hear someone attacked by a bear," Don Wilhelm told the AP. They said one of the campers tried to fend off the bear by punching it in the face.