LONG BARN, Calif. — For a few minutes Monday evening, the calm sounds of birds chirping and trees swaying in the Tuolumne County community of Long Barn were interrupted by chaos and danger.
"My wife had just come home and opened the door, and all of a sudden, we heard somebody yelling and screaming," said Long Barn resident Philip Thomas. "He said 'Bear!'"
The panic was coming from a 24-year-old jogger. According to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the man was jogging along North Fork Road around 5 p.m. Monday when he came across a female bear and a cub.
The bear started chasing the man, who eventually hit it on the head with a large stick and hid behind a tree.
The attempted counter-attack on the bear only enraged it more. The bear continued chasing him until he got to the roof of a nearby car.
"He had a big hole in his leg," Thomas said. "I came out and grabbed two metal chairs that I have and made myself really big, and started clanging them together. It took off, down the hill. It turned around, paused and looked at me, so I grabbed a log and I threw it right next to it."
With the bear gone, Thomas and a neighbor helped the man down from the car. While the good Samaritans were wrapping the man's leg in a homemade tourniquet, first responders arrived.
The California Department of Fish and Wildlife was among them, saying they collected samples from the scene and the man's wounds to be tested at a forensic laboratory in Sacramento.
"I'm not going to let somebody get eaten by a bear," said Thomas on his split-second decision to get involved. "I'm sure the runner just spooked the bear somehow, and she felt threatened."
The attack was shocking to Thomas who has reported four bear sightings in the year and a half that he's lived in the rural community.
"They don't usually mess with you, so that was peculiar," Thomas said. "Sometimes you'll... see a tree, six feet up, you'll see a swipe."
Each of those cases and now Monday's close call are grisly reminders that while Thomas and his neighbors live there, the forest belongs to a different species.
"It's a little working ecosystem up here," Thomas said. "I respect the bear, but I’m not afraid of the bear.”
The Department of Fish and Wildlife said that if you see a bear in nature, keep a distance, avoid running or making eye contact and make yourself look and sound bigger.
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