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Woman Survives Bear Attack In NH

CENTER HARBOR, N.H. (CBS) – A woman came face-to-face with a bear at her home in Center Harbor, New Hampshire over the weekend and lived to tell about it.

57-year-old Jacqueline Berghorn told WBZ-TV she was outside with her dog at about 9:30 p.m. Sunday when a black bear weighing close to 200 pounds came onto her porch.

WBZ-TV's Karen Anderson reports.

She said they looked each other in the eye and the bear lunged at her.

"Just with his paws down. He just charged me, he snorted and charged me like a bull," Berghorn said.

Bear Trap
The trap NH wildlife officials set to catch a bear in Center Harbor. (credit: Brad Morse/NH Conservation Officer)

It pushed her down and she hit a glass door.  The bear then ran away, right through a fence, and fell eight feet down into the woods.  But it didn't give up.

Berghorn said it came back and her husband fired two shots at it.  He missed and the bear ran off.

Berghorn was treated for minor injuries and bruises.

"If he had his nails out I'd be in the hospital," she said. "Nothing broke, and I was very lucky."

Investigators from the New Hampshire Department of Fish and Game are now trying to find the bear and figure out what caused it to attack.

"I think she was very fortunate, but I think the bear was probably as scared as she was.  I think the bear was probably more scared than anything else," Fish and Game Conservation Officer Brad Morse told WBZ-TV.

Berghorn said they had been cooking in their yard earlier in the day.

New Hampshire Bear Attack
Jacqueline Berghorn shows off one her injuries. (photo credit: Brad Morse, N.H. Conservation Officer)

Brad More explained the bear was used to finding food in the neighborhood.

"The situation is, this bear was probably baited in. The people next door had been feeding the bear for 5 years," Morse said.

Berghorn says her former neighbors fed the birds, and didn't intend to feed the bears.

Fish and Game officers say everyone should bring in their feeders on April 1st.  Bears can smell bird seed a mile away.

Authorities will put a trap at the house Monday afternoon in the event the bear comes back.

One of Berghorn's neighbors said a bear killed six chickens on his property Sunday, but it's believed to be a different bear.

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