Cody, Wyoming - Frantic seconds into an attack by a bear, Deb Freele did something that went against all her instincts but probably saved her life - she totally relaxed.
"I thought I would be dinner," said Freele, 58, a visitor to the Montana backcountry from Canada, who recalled awakening from a deep sleep in her tent near Yellowstone National Park to find she was being chewed on by a bear.
"Within hundredths of seconds, I felt the teeth in my arm, heard bones breaking. I screamed and that seemed to aggravate him. He sunk his teeth into me again," she said in a telephone interview from her hospital room in Cody, Wyoming.
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"So I decided to play dead and mean it," she said. "Every muscle in my body went limp, like a rag doll ... I thought I could play dead or be dead."
Her determination to stay calm and fight panic proved critical to her survival.
Freele said she quickly felt the bear's jaws relax and, within several seconds, "he just dropped me and walked away."
Freele, from London, Ontario, was one of three people attacked separately by a bear before dawn on Wednesday at the Soda Butte campground in Montana's Gallatin National Forest.
One man was killed and another injured in the attacks, which wildlife officials said seemed to have been unprovoked.
Freele, who suffered multiple bites to her left arm, which was broken, said her ordeal lasted about 35 or 40 seconds and that her husband, who was asleep in a nearby tent, did not awaken until after it was over.
She said she believes the bear was a grizzly but wildlife officials were still trying to determine whether the animal was a grizzly bear or a black bear.
A spokesman for the Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks Department said a preliminary investigation found no evidence of food at the campsites or in tents - a magnet for bears.
Freele, an experienced camper who was making her first visit to grizzly country, said: "I'm not afraid of bears, I respect them."
Reporting by Laura Zuckerman
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