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LAKE TAHOE, Calif. () — A father in the Lake Tahoe area says bear spray helped stop a bear that charged toward him after his daughters encountered the animal near the family’s vacation home.
Cortlandt Koerwitz said his daughters were packing coolers in the garage for a 4th of July boat trip when they noticed a bear going through garbage.
“The girls said that the bear, instead of running away like normal, the bear kind of came towards them,” Koerwitz said.
According to Koerwitz, he grabbed bear spray that he keeps by the garage door when the bear approached.
“It was rushing me,” he said. “The bear spray worked, and it worked on me too. It definitely worked because as as the cloud of spray kind of came back towards me.”
Video of the encounter shows Koerwitz deploying the spray as the bear moved toward him. After using the spray, he can be heard coughing and saying, “Got to get a mask on.”
Koerwitz said he frequently sees bears near the family’s Lake Tahoe vacation home. He also shared video of a previous encounter from two years ago, but said this was the first time he had seen a bear behaving aggressively.
“So, yeah, wasn’t a lot of options if I didn’t have that bear spray,” Koerwitz said.
Koerwitz said his advice for people who live in areas where bears are common is to keep bear spray readily available. He said that without it, he would have had almost no way to defend himself.
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