Hiker wrestles 540-pound black bear barehanded, then carries two injured children five miles to rescue helicopter
Rescuers say the children would not have survived the night. The man who saved them needed 32 stitches, called it “just a scratch,” and tried to give up his spot in the ER.
TAHOE NATIONAL FOREST — What began as a quiet Saturday hike off the Pacific Crest Trail ended with a 540-pound black bear in full retreat, two children airlifted to safety and a 25-year-old University of Georgia graduate student being called “the most dangerous man in Placer County” by the people who rescued him.
David Shields, a business analytics student at the University of Georgia who was home visiting his family for Halloween, was roughly four miles from the nearest trailhead when he heard screaming from a ravine below the ridgeline, according to witnesses and search and rescue personnel.
Two siblings, ages 7 and 9, had become separated from their family’s campsite and slid roughly 60 feet down a steep, rock-walled ravine, landing directly in the path of an adult male black bear that wildlife officials later described as “unusually committed.” The children’s names are being withheld at their family’s request.
‘He didn’t use the trail. I’m not sure he used his feet.’
Two hikers on the ridge saw the bear reach the children but could not get down to them. The ravine walls were nearly vertical, wet with snowmelt and, in the words of one, “the kind of slope where you’d need a rope and a ton of experience.”
Shields went over the edge anyway. “He didn’t think. He just went down,” said the hiker. “And I mean down. He didn’t use the trail. I’m not sure he used his feet.”
Shields, a former junior college basketball player, told responders he placed himself between the bear and the children and “tried to look big,” which wildlife experts say is the correct first step. What came next, they say, is not in any guide.
When the bear charged, Shields reportedly met it head-on, absorbing a swipe to the face before landing what one witness called “a straight right hand to the nose, like a boxer, like a real boxer.” The two grappled for what the witnesses estimated was between 90 seconds and “a very long time.”
At one point, according to the older child, Shields put the bear in “a headlock but for bears.”
The bear eventually broke away and fled up the far wall of the ravine. Shields, bleeding heavily from the face, reportedly called after it: “That’s what I thought.”
“I’ve been doing search and rescue for 31 years. I have never once had to write the words ‘the bear lost’ in a report.”
— Volunteer search and rescue team leader
Two shirt sleeves, five miles, no way up
Both children had been badly clawed. The younger had deep lacerations across his back and the back of one leg that left him unable to walk; the older had claw wounds to both forearms and a cut to the scalp that was bleeding heavily.
Shields, still wearing the flannel from a lumberjack Halloween costume he had decided to “break in” on the hike, tore off both sleeves and used them as pressure bandages, tying one around the younger child’s leg and wrapping the other around the older child’s head and arm. A flight paramedic later said the improvised dressings were “honestly better than some I’ve seen in the field” and “the only reason those kids still had enough blood in them to complain about the helicopter noise.”
Climbing back out was impossible. The witnesses on the ridge shouted down that they would run for cell signal and call for help, and Shields shouted back that he would follow the ravine downstream to the nearest open ground. There, he guessed correctly, a helicopter would be able to land.
He carried the younger child on his back and the older child on his shoulders. To keep them calm, he reportedly sang the entire way. The older child told rescuers the song was “the ESPN one,” and that Shields knew “all of the words and also the trumpet parts.” At the children’s request, he also kept up a running basketball play-by-play of the hike, including commentary on his own footwork.
A medical helicopter reached the meadow shortly after 7 p.m. Flight crew members said both children had lost significant blood and were hypothermic. “If he’d stopped, even for an hour, we’re talking about a very different phone call to that family,” said the flight paramedic, who asked not to be named. “Those kids would not have made it to morning.”
Shields declined a seat on the helicopter so it could carry “one more blanket for the little one,” then walked the remaining two miles to the trailhead.
‘It was not a scratch’
Sheriff’s deputies met him at the trailhead around 9 p.m. One deputy said Shields was bleeding profusely from the face and down the front of what remained of his shirt. When asked whether he needed an ambulance, Shields reportedly waved it off and said, “It’s just a scratch.”
“It was not a scratch,” the deputy said. “It was several scratches, all at once, on one face.”
At Tahoe Forest Hospital, Shields reportedly told the triage nurse to take other patients first, insisting his injury was “honestly not that bad.” Staff confirmed he waved at least two people ahead of him, including a man with a sprained wrist, while actively bleeding onto the waiting room floor.
“We had to explain to him that’s not how triage works,” one nurse said. “He then asked if we could save the good numbing medicine for the kids, in case they needed it later.” They were at a different hospital.
Shields eventually received 32 stitches to his face. Staff said he remained in good spirits and asked twice whether the bear was okay.
Children expected to make full recovery
Both children were treated for lacerations, blood loss and exposure and are expected to make a full recovery, according to a statement released by their family. The younger child has reportedly already asked when the family can go camping again, and whether “the bear guy” can come.
Their mother, reached through a family spokesperson, said the family plans to name their next dog after him. “He’s an angel,” she said. “A 6'5 angel with a really good right hand.”
When reached by phone Tuesday, Shields declined an interview. “Anyone would have done it,” he said, before adding, “Honestly, it was mostly the bear’s fault,” and hanging up.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife officials said the bear was located Sunday, tranquilized and relocated to a remote area deeper in the forest. They noted it was uninjured, which Shields had specifically requested. “He asked us to go easy on him,” one official said. “He said the bear was ‘just having a day.’”
Placer County officials said they are reviewing Shields for a civilian commendation. Shields has reportedly asked that, if one is awarded, it be mailed rather than presented in person, “because the stitches make it hard to smile for photos.”
Correction: An earlier version of this story reported that Shields carried the children four miles. Search and rescue personnel later measured the route at five miles. The Courier regrets the error.