A man was rescued in the Alaskan wilderness after fending off a bear attack every night for a whole week.
Emergency crews spotted the exhausted and stricken man waving into the air with an SOS sign planted on top of a shack nearby.
On rescuing him he was found to have suffered bruising on his torso and a leg injury and said he had been repeatedly harassed by a bear every night for a week.
The Coast Guard said the rescue happened on July 16 as a helicopter flew from Kotzebue to Nome.
His friends had reported him missing after he failed to return home to Nome, which is on the western coast of Alaska.
The New York Times reports that the man was found to be sleep-deprived and nearly out of ammunition during the bear siege.
One of the pilots who made the rescue Lt. Cmdr. Jared Carbajal, said: “At some point, a bear had dragged him down to the river.
“He had a pistol. He said that the bear kept coming back every night and he hadn’t slept in a few days.”
The Coast Guard have not identified the man, who rescuers said was in his late 50s or early 60s.
Commander Carbajal went on to say that the Coast Guard MH-60 Jayhawk helicopter had changed its course by about a mile to avoid clouds before spotting something, to the notice of his co-pilot.
Commander Carbajal added: “He said, ‘Hey there’s a guy down there and he’s waving at us. I said, ‘Is he waving with one hand or two hands?’
“I said well, that’s usually a sign of distress.”
Authorities said the man only had two rounds left in his pistol when they found him, before being brought to Nome where an ambulance was waiting for him.
