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Man attacked by bear near Aspen: ‘I literally thought I might be dead’

An evidence bag is sealed before being packed out from near an abandoned mine on Aspen Mountain, Friday, July 10, 2020. A bear suspected of attacking a man early on Friday morning was tracked to the mine and euthanized by Colorado Parks and Wildlife officers.
Kelsey Brunner / The Aspen Times

The man who was injured Friday morning by a bear that got into a house in the Castle Creek Valley said he was trying to get the bear out of the house when it swiped at him.

A man identified as Dave Chenosky and in town visiting a friend’s house told ABC World News Tonight that he heard a noise about 1 a.m. Friday in the house and came across the bear when it was in the kitchen.

He said he attempted to get it to leave through the garage and tried to open the garage door to let the bear out. That is when things became dangerous.



“I turned around in the hallway and looked him straight in the face and he just went ‘bam’ and hit me in with his paw one time,” said Chenosky, who has large cuts on the left side of his face, including very near his left eye.

Colorado Parks and Wildlife area manager Matt Yamashita said officers responded to the incident at about 3 a.m. and are investigating how the bear got in and the encounter. He told The Aspen Times on Friday they were not able to find “any relatable attractants that were obvious as to why the bear was there or why it entered the house.”



Chenosky was taken to Aspen Valley Hospital and then transferred by ambulance to St. Mary’s Hospital in Grand Junction.

“I literally thought I might be dead,” he told ABC News.

CPW officials sent evidence from the bear, which they tracked near a mineshaft on the backside of Aspen Mountain and euthanized, to the state lab in Fort Collins on Friday afternoon. After testing there by state veterinarians, it will be sent to a lab in Wyoming for DNA analysis, Yamashita said.

He said Friday the officers are very confident it is the same bear, but protocol remains to send evidence to the labs for testing and analysis. Those results could come in some time this week, Yamashita said Friday.

Efforts by The Aspen Times to reach Chenosky have been unsuccessful.


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