AN ULTRA-marathon runner living in Japan has had his arm “snapped off” by a bear in a brutal attack that left the limb held together by his coat.
Billy Halloran, 32, was out for a run in the foothills of Myoko, Japan, when the wild animal struck.
Billy reached the 4km mark on his 8km run when he spotted two Asiatic Black Bears on the trail ahead of him.
Each of the beasts was estimated to weigh in at around 60kg, Billy slowly started to back away from the beasts in a bid to quietly escape a mauling.
The bears began to head off the trail but before Billy could breath a sigh of relief, one of them rushed back towards him.
Billy, who had never encountered a bear in the three years he lived in Japan, made himself as large and as loud as possible.
Knowing that running wasn’t an option Billy hoped to scare the charging bear away, screaming at the top of his lungs.
Billy told Radio New Zealand: “As I realised the bear was gonna get me, I used my right arm to shield my face.”
The beast launched itself at the runner and gripped his arm in its powerful jaws.
Billy was bowled over, his arm shattering in the bears mouth as it crunched its jaw closed.
“It’s hard to think back on that moment,” Billy said.
“I was screaming a lot, in fight or flight, thinking, ‘well, this is either gonna go really, really bad, like it’s gonna let go and run away, or it’s just gonna keep going.’
“I thought, I just gotta defend here, or like, this is it, the worst case scenario.”
Eventually the bear released Billy’s shattered arm and gripped his calf muscle instead.
He was left with severe scratching and puncture wounds on his lower leg in the wake of the horrific attack.
Thankfully the bear decided enough was enough and for some bizarre reason backed off.
Billy managed to stand up and made for safety, checking over his shoulder constantly worried the bear would come back and launch a second assault.
With his leg bleeding badly and his arm “fully snapped” and held together only by his rain jacket, Billy started to run and call for help.
He contacted his wife, dialling her one handed, thankfully the wounded runner was a five minute drive from home and his wife raced to rescue him.
Billy’s wife, Chisato Hayashi, arrived a short time later and rushed him to a waiting ambulance.
He was raced to hospital in Joetsu, a forty minute drive away, and as the adrenaline began to wear off on the lengthy drive he started to feel the pain of the attack.
Billy underwent hours of gruelling surgery as medics battled to save his life.
Doctors performed three separate operations on the wounded man, one lasting four hours.
Billy’s mauled arm was broken in three places and a chunk had been taken out of the bone.
The first two surgeries were performed with Billy under general anaesthesia and he could watch the doctors working to piece his arm back together via a live x-ray screen.
Billy now has two metal plates in his arm and an entourage of four nurses checking up on him.
His mum has flown over from New Zealand to help look after him, bringing his favourite chocolate snacks with her.
Billy said he hasn’t been brave enough to look at his own arm yet but thinks he’ll be left with some serious scarring.
The Asiatic Black Bear
The Asian black bear (Ursus thibetanus) is also known as the Asiatic black bear, moon bear and white-chested bear.
It is a medium-sized species native to Asia that is largely adapted to an arboreal lifestyle.
The species can be found most commonly in Iran, Pakistan, India and the Himalayas and is also present on the Korean Peninsula, China, Russia and the islands of Honshu and Shikoku in Japan.
Asian black bears are threatened by deforestation and poaching for its body parts, which are used in traditional medicine.
Seven people have died in Japan as a result of bear attacks since April – the highest since 2006 when data was first recorded.
One recent estimate puts the number of black bears on the Japanese isles at 44,000.
Because of the expansion of the distribution of bears and human encroachment into bear habitat, contact between bears and humans has increased.
