Bear Attack Survivor’s Harrowing Tale

A young Alaskan woman played dead during a frightening bear attack. 

From Yahoo news:

The bear knocked Gamboa down, then picked her up and threw her to the ground. The bear went on to pummel Gamboa several times more with her powerful paws.

Throughout the May 18 attack, Gamboa lay in a fetal position and remained silent.

That action likely saved her life.

“I actually can’t even believe this actually really happened,” the 25-year-old woman said in a videotaped interview released by the Army on Thursday. “It seems still surreal, just for the fact that I’m still alive — seems unreal. “

In the interview taped Tuesday at her hospital bed, Gamboa said she surrendered herself to the bear during the attack at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Anchorage after she encountered the animal and her two cubs. Gamboa, of Sacramento, California, is married to a soldier assigned at the base to the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division.