New book takes look at bear attacks

BY MARY L. HEEREN
For the News-Democrat

"I gasped as the leaves split apart ... revealing two of the fastest, biggest brown bears I'd ever seen charging right at me.

"I shot from the waist. The crack of my rifle seemed to reverberate for miles. I'm a crack shot but this time, when it really mattered, I missed.

"Now plainly visible were the ugly yellow spikes of teeth protruding from drooling jaws. I dropped my rifle and threw my hands over my face, protecting my eyes. As I did, the bears lunged. I felt a staggering blow against my back and then a force struck my shoulders, knocking me down."

-- From "Bear Attacks of the Century: True Stories of Courage and Survival" by St. Jacob resident Larry Mueller and Marguerite Reiss of Alaska.

"Bear Attacks" is Mueller's 10th book and his first with Reiss. He also has a lifetime of columns and features for outdoor magazines.

"Outdoor survival stories are what I just love to write," said Mueller.

But a successful story needs the right elements, he said.

"You need a serious threat to life, it has to last more than an instant, he's got to solve his dilemma or his buddy has to kill the bear, and you have to have a successful outcome," he said.

Editors at Outdoor Life connected Reiss with Mueller. He has written for the magazine since 1982, and when Reiss submitted a bear attack story in the late 1980s, editors turned the material over to Mueller for rewriting.

"They were good stories but poorly written," he said.

The two eventually did a number of bear stories for Outdoor Life, and that led to the 178-page "Bear Attack" soft cover published by Pequot Press of Guilford, Conn. The book includes some stories originally published in Outdoor Life and some new material.

The two are now working on "Extreme Outdoor Adventures: Who Survives and Why," with a March 31 deadline.

"We don't have a contract back from Pequot, but the query passed the editorial and publishing boards," Mueller said. He anticipates the book to be out in 2007 or 2008.

One story in the new collection is about a hunter who survives a dunking in 28-degree water with the air temperature at 10 degrees. Another is about a man caught in a culvert with an alligator. The volume also includes a "survivor personality test" developed by a Portland, Ore., psychologist, Mueller said.