A Canadian man says he survived a bear attack by grabbing the animal's tongue and hanging on for dear life.
Gilles Cyr told Canada's
that he was walking through his heavily wooded property near
, when the black bear burst out of the woods and attacked him.
"When I opened up my eyes it was on top of me -- with the friggin' noise, it's crazy the way it growls. Right from the stomach... His mouth was wide open right in front of my face so the last thing I remember I had his tongue in my hand and I didn't want to let go because he was trying to fight me off… " Cyr said in a video interview.
"For a second, I thought I was dead … that's the first thing that comes to your mind when you open your eyes and see that friggin' mouth full of teeth and a tongue in there. It's like ... an extreme sport."
After wrestling with the bear, Cyr let the tongue go long enough to get away and get behind a tree. He had scratches on his stomach and a bear bite on his knee but was otherwise uninjured. The bear lost interest, he said, and wandered off.
Cyr said he later got a permit to track and kill the bear.
