College Sophomore fights bear to save his teammate

By Josiah Bartlett, Sports Editor, The Pawprint

Kendell Cummings is a sophomore at Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. He and his wrestling teammates were at Shoshone National Forest looking for fallen antlers on Oct. 15. Then Cummings and his teammate Brady Lowry came across a grizzly bear that attacked them, with Lowry being tackled first.

Cummings reacted on instinct and started to attack the bear so that the attention would be focused on him rather than Lowry. Then the bear turned on Cummings and pushed him to the ground.

The bear then used its head to push Cummings across the ground and up a tree. Cummings was doing his best to make sure that the bear was not chewing on his neck, so he was sticking his hands into the bear’s mouth. The bear stopped after a couple of seconds and left. Cummings called for Lowry and heard no response, all he heard was the grunts of the bear behind him. As soon as Cummings saw the bear to the right of him, it attacked him again.

Eventually, Cummings and Lowry escaped from the bear and reunited with their other two teammates, August Harrison and Orrin Jackson. This is when they called 911 and Jackson said to the dispatch lady, “That’s my brother up there”, and both coordinated a plan to get the Flight for Life to help.