In a survival story as chilling as it is miraculous, Siberian hunters trekking through a dense forest stumbled upon what they thought was a tragic scene: a woman, bloodied and nearly buried by a bear. But in an astonishing twist, 55-year-old Natalya Pasternak, a mother of three, was still alive.
Pasternak had been collecting birch sap in the Tynda woods of Siberia with her elderly friend, Valentina Gorodetskaya, when a massive bear attacked. Her dog’s barking was no match for the predator, which charged straight for the two women. Knowing her friend couldn’t escape, Pasternak made a split-second decision to stop running and confront the bear head-on.
The bear’s attack was brutal. It tore through Pasternak’s scalp, arms, and legs, leaving her severely injured. “A quick thought hit me: ‘If the bear takes my legs, I’ll be a burden to my children,’” she later recounted. After the assault, the bear dragged her bloodied body to a spot in the forest, burying her partially under leaves, saving her for a later meal.
Hours later, hunters came upon the bear still guarding its “prize.” Seeing movement, Sergei Ivanov, a seasoned hunter, quickly took action, shooting the bear. Ivanov then saw Pasternak’s bloodied face and arm barely visible from under the foliage.
“Did you kill the bear?” was Pasternak’s first question after her harrowing ordeal. Grateful and in shock, she was rushed to the hospital, where she endured a challenging recovery but miraculously survived. Her resilience and her friend’s quick action saved her from what seemed an impossible situation.
